»ii  III  I  irt^'Tumrnut.^, 


WOETflWAI. 


i 


THE  LIBRARY 
OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 

OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 


POMEGRANATES 
FROM   AN   ENGLISH  GARDEN 

A  SELECTION  FROM  THE  POEMS  OF 

ROBERT   BROWNING. 


WITH    INTRODUCTION    AND    NOTES    BY 
JOHN    MONRO    GIBSON. 


"  Or  from  Browning  some  '  Pomegranate,'  which,  if  cut 
deep  down  the  middle, 
Shows  a  heart  within,  blood-tinctured,  of  a  veined 
humanity." 

Lady  Geraldine's  Courtship. 


NEW  YORK: 

CHAUTAUQUA     PRESS, 

C,  L.  S.  C.  Department. 

1885. 


The  required  books  of  the  C.  L.  S.  C.  are  reeommended 
by  a  Cotmcil  oi  six.  it  musr,  however,  be  understood  that 
recommendation  does  not  involve  an  approval  by  the 
Council,  or  by  any  member  of  it,  of  every  principle  or  doe- 
trine  contained  in  the  book  reeon:iniended. 


Copyright  1885,  by  Phillips  ii  Hunt,  805  Broadway,  New  York. 


PK 


INTRODUCTORY. 

The  name  of  Robert  Browning  has  been  before  the  world 
now  for  fifty  years.  For  the  greater  part  of  the  time  his  work 
has  had  so  little  recognition,  that  one  marvels  at  his  courage  in 
going  so  steadily  on  with  it.  His  "Pomegranates"  have  been 
produced  year  after  year,  decade  after  decade,  in  unfailing 
abundance  ;  and,  while  critics  have  kept  paring  at  the  rind,  and 
the  general  public  has  not  even  asked  if  there  was  anything 
beneath  it,  he  has  laboured  on  with  unremitting  energy,  calmly 
awaiting  the  time  when  "  the  heart  within,  blood-tinctured,  of  a 
veined  humanity,"  should  be  at  length  discovered.  It  can  scarcely 
be  said,  even  yet,  that  that  time  has  come  ;  but  it  is  coming  fast. 
Already  he  is  something  more  than  "  the  poet's  poet."  Few 
intelligent  people  now  are  content  to  know  one  of  the  master 
minds  of  the  age  simply  as  the  author  of  "  The  Pied  Piper  of 
Hamelin,"  as  if  that  were  the  only  thing  he  had  written  worth 
reading  ! 

That  the  form  in  which  the  thought  of  Browning  is  cast  is 
altogether  admirable,  is  Avhat  none  but  his  most  undiscriminating 
admirers  will  assert.  It  is  often,  unquestionably,  rough  and 
forbidding.  But  there  is  strength  even  in  its  ruggedness  ;  and 
in  its  entire  freedom  from  conventionality  there  is  a  charm  such 
as  one  enjoys  in  wild  mountain  scenery,  even  though  only  in 
little  patches  it  may  have  any  suggestion  of  the  garden  or  the 
lawn.  There  are  those  who  have  charged  the  poet  with  affecta- 
tion of  the  uncouth  and  the  bizarre  ;  but  careful  reading  will,  we 
think,  render  it  apparent  that  it  is  rather  his  utter  freedom  from 
affectation  which  determines  and  perpetuates  the  peculiarities 
and  oddities  of  his  style ;  that,  in  fact,  the  aphorism  of  Buffon,  "/e 


76290G 


ii  Introductory. 

style  est  Vhomme  7}thne,'"  is  undoubtedly  true  as  applied  to  him. 
It  would,  of  course,  be  absurd  to  claim  for  the  pomegranate  the 
bloom  and  beauty  of  the  peach  ;  but,  equally  with  the  other,  it 
is  Nature's  gift,  and  to  toss  aside  a  rough-rinded  fruit  because  it 
needs  to  be  "  cut  deep  down  the  middle  "  before  its  pulp  and 
juices  can  be  reached,  is  surely  far  from  wise.  Even  hard  nuts 
are  not  to  be  despised,  if  the  kernels  are  good  ;  and  as  to 
Browning's  "  nuts,"  we  have  this  to  say,  that  not  only  are  they 
well  worth  cracking,  but  there  is  in  the  process  excellent 
exercise  for  the  teeth. 

This  brings  us  to  the  alleged  "  obscurity "  of  Browning's 
wTitings,  which  still  continues  to  be  the  main  obstacle  to  their 
general  appreciation.  It  is  freely  admitted  that  often  it  is  not  quite 
easy,  and  sometimes  veiy  difficult,  to  understand  him  ;  and  it  is 
hard  for  most  people  to  see  why  he  could  not  make  his  meaning 
plainer,  and  matter  for  regret  to  many,  who  heartily  admire  him, 
that  he  has  not  done  so.  That  he  has  taken  some  pains  to  this 
end  is  evident  from  what  he  says  in  the  preface  to  "  Sordello," 
written  for  an  edition  issued  in  1863,  twenty-three  years  after  its 
original  publication  :  "  My  own  faults  of  expression  were 
many.  ...  I  blame  nobody,  least  of  all  myself,  who  did  my 
best  then  and  since,  for  I  lately  gave  time  and  pains  to  turn  my 
work  into  what  the  many  might — instead  of  what  the  few  must — 
like."  In  a  later  preface  (1872)  he  says,  "  Nor  do  I  apprehend 
any  more  charges  of  being  wilfully  obscure,  unconscientiously 
careless,  or  perversely  harsh."  The  true  explanation  of  it  seems 
to  be  what  we  have  already  suggested,  that  he  does  not  think  of 
his  audience  as  he  writes,  his  only  care  being  to  express  the 
thought  in  the  way  which  comes  most  natural  to  him.  As  a 
dramatist,  he  can  throw  himself  with  abandonment  into  the 
persons  he  represents  ;  but  he  never  seems  to  think  of  putting 
himself  in  the  position  of  a  listener,  or,  if  he  does,  he  assumes 
too  readily  that  he  has  a  mind  of  similar  texture  and  grasp  to 
his  own.  On  the  other  hand,  it  is  fair  to  say  that  the  difficulty 
of  understanding  him  arises  in  great  part  from  the  very  excel- 


Introductory.  iii 

lence  of  his  work.     The  following  considerations  will  illustrate 
what  we  mean  : — 

1.  His  work  is  full  of  thought,  and  the  thought  is  never 
commonplace.  There  is  so  much  of  it,  and  all  is  so  fresh, 
and  therefore  unfamiliar,  that  some  mental  effort  is  necessary 
to  grasp  it.  The  following  characteristic  remark  of  Bishop 
Butler,  in  his  preface  to  the  famous  Fifteen  Sermons,  is 
worth  consideration  in  this  connection  :  "It  must  be  ac- 
knowledged that  some  of  the  following  Discourses  are  very 
abstruse  and  difficult ;  or,  if  you  please,  obscure ;  but  I  must 
take  leave  to  add  that  those  alone  are  judges,  whether  or  no 
and  how  far  this  is  a  fault,  who  are  judges,  whether  or  no 
and  how  far  it  might  have  been  avoided — those  only  who  will  be 
at  the  trouble  to  understand  what  is  here  said,  and  to  see  how 
far  the  things  here  insisted  upon,  and  not  other  things,  might 
have  been  put  in  a  plainer  manner ;  which  yet  I  am  very  far 
from  asserting  that  they  could  not." 

2.  The  expression  is  always  the  briefest.  Not  only  are  no 
words  wasted,  but,  where  connecting  ideas  are  easily  supplied, 
they  are  often  left  unexpressed,  the  intelligence  and  mental 
activity  of  the  reader  being  always  taken  for  granted. 

3.  The  poems  are,  for  the  most  part,  dramatic  in  principle. 
The  reader  is  brought  face  to  face  with  some  soul,  in  its 
thoughts  and  emotions,  frequently  in  the  \'ery  process  of  the 
thinking  and  the  feeling.  The  poet  has  stepped  aside,  and  of 
course  supplies  no  key.  The  author  docs  not  appear,  like  the 
chorus  in  a  Greek  play,  to  point  a  moral  or  explain  the  situation. 
The  dramatis  personce  must'  explain  themselves.  And,  just  as 
Shakespeare  must  be  studied  in  order  to  an  appreciation  other 
than  second-hand,  so  must  Browning  be  studied  in  order  to  be 
appreciated  at  all  ;  for  his  writings  are  not  yet  old  enough  to 
secure  much  second-hand  enthusiasm. 

4.  The  wealth  of  allusion  is  another  source  of  difficulty.  The 
learning  of  our  poet  is  encyclopaedic  ;  and  though  there  is  no 
display  of  it,  there  is  large  use  of  it  ;  and  it  often  happens  that 

A2 


iv  Introductory. 

passages  or  phrases,  which  seem  crabbed  or  obscure,  require 
only  the  knowledge  of  some  unfamiliar  fact  in  science  or  in 
history,  or  it  may  be  something  not  readily  thought  of,  and  yet 
within  easy  range  of  a  keen  enough  observation,  to  light  them 
up  and  reveal  unsuspected  strength  or  beauty. 

Before  leaving  the  subject  of  the  rough  and  often  tough 
exterior  of  Browning's  work,  it  may  be  interesting  to  refer  to 
the  characteristic  illustration  of  it  he  has  lately  given  us  in 
the  prologue  to  "  Ferishtah's  Fancies,"  his  most  recent  work. 
He  begins  by  asking  the  reader  whether  he  has  ever  "  eaten 
ortolans  in  Italy,"  and  then  goes  on  to  describe  the  preparation 
of  them.  The  following  lines  will  show  the  use  he  makes  of 
the  illustration  : 

"  First  comes  plain  bread,  crisp,  brown,  a  toasted  square  ; 

Then,  a  strong  sage-leaf; 
(So  we  tind  books  with  flowers  dried  here  and  there 

Lest  leaf  engage  leaf. ) 
First,  food — then,  piquancy — and  last  of  all 

Follows  the  thirdling  ; 
Through  wholesome  hard,  sharp  soft,  your  tooth  must  bite 

Ere  reach  the  birdling. 
Now,  were  there  only  crust  to  crunch,  you'd  wince  : 

Unpalatable ! 
Sage-leaf  is  bitter-pungent — so's  a  quince  ; 

Eat  each  who's  able  ! 
But  through  all  three  bite  boldly — lo,  the  gust  I 

Flavour — no  fixture — 
Flies  permeating  flesh  and  leaf  and  crust 

In  fine  admixture. 
So  with  your  meal,  my  poem  ;  masticate 

Sense,  sight  and  song  there  ! 
Digest  these,  and  I  praise  your  peptics'  state, 

Nothing  found  wrong  there." 

This  extract  also  furnishes  an  example  of  the  strange  rhymes 
in  which  the  poet  sometimes  indulges,  with  what  appears  too 
little  refinement  of  taste. 

The  themes  of  Browning's  poetry  are  the  very  greatest  that 
can  engage  the  thought  of  man.  He  ranges  over  a  vast  variety 
of  topic  ;   but,  wherever  his  thought  may  lead  him,  he  never 


Introductory .  v 

loses  sight  of  that  which  is  to  him  the  centre  of  all,  the  human 
soul,  with  its  infinite  wants  and  capabilities.  In  the  preface  to 
"  Sordello  "  he  says  :  "  The  historical  decoration  was  purposely 
of  no  more  importance  than  a  background  requires  ;  and  my 
stress  lay  on  the  incidents  in  the  development  of  a  soul  :  little 
else  is  worth  study.  I,  at  least,  always  thought  so."  To  this 
principle  he  has  kept  true  through  all  his  work  ;  and  hence  it  is 
that,  whether  the  particular  subject  be  love,  or  home,  or 
country  ;  poetry,  painting,  or  music ;  life,  death,  or  immortality; 
it  is  dealt  with  in  its  relation  to  "  the  development  of  a  soul." 
Hence  it  is  that  his  poetry  is  so  thoroughly  and  profoundly 
spiritual,  and  so  exceedingly  valuable  as  a  counteractive  to  the 
materialism  of  the  age,  which  ever  tends  to  merge  the  soul  in 
the  body,  and  swallow  up  the  real  in  mere  phenomena. 

As  might  be  expected  of  one  who  deals  so  profoundly  with  all 
that  he  touches,  the  great  reality  of  the  universe  to  him  is  God. 
Agnosticism  has  little  mercy  at  his  hands  ;  if  a  man  knows 
anything  at  all,  he  knows  God.  And  the  God  whom  he  knows 
is  not  a  God  apart,  looking  down  from  some  infinite  or  indefinite 
height  upon  the  world,  but  one  in  whom  all  live  and  move  .and 
have  their  being.  Out  of  this  springs,  of  course,  the  hope  of 
immortality,  and  also  that  bright  and  cheerful  view  of  life  so 
completely  opposed  to  the  dark  pessimism  to  which  much  of  the 
unbelieving  speculation  of  the  present  day  so  painfully  tends. 
The  dark  things  of  human  life  and  destiny  are  by  no  means 
ignored  ;  rather  are  they  dwelt  on  with  a  painful  and  sometimes 
frightful  realism  ;  but  even  amid  deepest  darkness  the  light 
above  is  never  quite  extinguished,  and  some  little  "  Pippa 
passes  "  singing  : 

"The  year's  at  the  spring 

And  day's  at  the  morn  ; 

Morning's  at  seven ; 

The  hill-side's  desv-pearled  ; 

The  lark's  on  the  wing  ; 

The  snail's  on  the  thorn  : 

God's  in  his  heaven — 

All's  right  with  the  world." 


VI  Introductory. 

There  has  been  much  discussion  as  to  Browning's  personal 
attitude  to  Christianity.  The  profoundly  Christian  tone  of  his 
writings  is,  of  course,  universally  acknowledged  ;  but  attempts 
are  sometimes  made  to  evade  the  force  of  those  numerous 
passages  in  which  he  speaks  of  the  Incarnation,  and  Death, 
and  Resurrection  of  the  Lord  Jesus,  in  a  way  which  seems 
to  imply  his  hearty  acceptance  of  the  substance  of  what  is 
known  as  evangelical  truth.  Much  has  been  made  in  this 
connection  of  the  way  in  which,  in  one  of  his  prefaces,  he 
characterises  his  work  as  "  poetry  always  dramatic  in  principle, 
and  so  many  utterances  of  so  many  imaginary  persons,  not 
mine  ;"  and  it  has  been  asserted  that  it  is  as  unwarrantable  to 
consider  him  to  be  speaking  his  own  sentiments  in  a  poem  like 
"Christmas  Eve,"  as  in  one  like  "Johannes  Agricola,"  or 
"  Bishop  Blougram's  Apology."  The  obvious  answer  is  that 
this  profound  sympathy  with  the  Christ  of  God  and  His 
salvation  is  not  found  in  some  solitary  production,  but  appears 
and  reappears,  often  when  least  expected,  all  through  his  works. 
In  that  remarkable  little  poem,  entitled  "  House,''  in  which 
more  strongly  than  anywhere  else  he  claims  personal  privacy, 
while  he  declines  to  be  regarded  as  having  furnished  his 
publishers  with  tickets  to  view  his  own  soul's  dwelling,  he 
admits  that  "whoso  desires  to  penetrate  deeper"  may  do  so 
"  by  the  spirit  sense  ;"  and  accordingly  some  of  his  admirers, 
who  dissent  from  him  most  strongly  on  this  point,  are  the  most 
ready  to  acknowledge  that  his  Christian  faith  is  no  stage  suit, 
but  the  very  garment  of  his  soul.  As  illustration  of  this  we 
may  refer  to  the  admirable  essay  by  the  late  James  Thomson, 
published  in  Part  II.  of  the  Browning  Society's  Papers,  in 
which,  after  expressing  his  amazement  that  a  great  mind  like 
Browning's.could  be  Christian,  he  asserts  the,  to  him,  remarkable 
but  quite  undeniable  fact  in  these  words  :  "  The  devout  and 
hopeful  Christian  faith,  explicitly  or  implicity  affirmed  in  such 
poems  as  Saul,  Kharshish,  Clean,  Calibaft  upon  Setebos,  A 
Death    in   the  Desert,   Instans   Tyratinus,   Rabbi    Ben    Ezra, 


Introductojy.  vii 

Prospice,  the  Epilogue,  and  throughout  that  stupendous  monu- 
mental work,  The  Ring  and  the  Book,  must  surely  be  as  clear  as 
noonday  to  even  the  most  purblind  vision." 

That  a  great  Christian  poet,  in  an  age  when  so  many  of  the 
intellectual  magnates  of  the  time  are  hostile  or  simply  silent, 
should  remain  unknown  or  little  known  to  any  large  proportion 
of  Christian  readers,  is  certainly  very  much  to  be  regretted. 
Surely  the  admiration  which  is  freely  and  generously  accorded 
to  his  work  by  many  who  are  constrained  to  it  in  spite  of  his 
faith  in  a  Christ  whom  they  reject,  is  a  rebuke  to  the  indifference 
of  those  who,  sharing  his  faith,  do  not  give  themselves  the 
trouble  to  inquire  what  he  has  to  say  about  it.  There  are  not 
so  many  avowed  and  outspoken  Christians  in  the  highest  walks 
of  literature  that  we  can  afford  to  pay  only  slight  attention  to 
the  utterances  of  one  who  has  the  ear  of  the  deepest  thinkers  in 
every  school  of  thought  all  the  world  over. 

The  immediate  object  of  this  selection  is  to  supply  an  intro- 
duction to  the  study  of  Browning  for  the  benefit  of  the  readers 
of  the  Chautauqua  Literary  and  Scientific  Circle  ;  but  it  is 
hoped  that  many  others,  inspired  with  similar  aims,  and  who 
have  not  had  such  advantages  that  they  can  dispense  with  all 
assistance  in  the  study  of  a  difficult  author,  may  find  help  from 
this  little  book.  It  is,  of  course,  better  to  read  for  one's  self  than 
to  follow  the  guidance  of  another  ;  and  yet  it  may  be  necessary 
to  open  a  path  far  enough  to  lead  within  sight  of  the  treasures  in 
store.  This  is  all  that  has  been  attempted  here — only  the  indi- 
cation of  a  few  veins  near  the  surface  of  a  rich  mine,  which  the 
reader  is  strongly  recommended  to  explore  for  himself. 

The  selection  has  been  arranged  on  the  principle  of  beginning 
with  that  which  is  simple,  and  proceeding  gradually  to  the  more 
complex,  with  some  regard  also  to  variety  and  progress  in  sub- 
jects, and  at  the  same  time  to  appropriateness  for  the  use  of  those 
younger  readers   for  whom  this  selection  mainly  is  intended. 

The  notes  are  meant  to  serve  only  as  a  guide  to  beginners  ; 


viii  Introductory. 

and  as  guides  are  proverbially  an  annoyance  when  their  services 
are  imposed  unsought,  these  are  disposed  at  the  end  of  each 
poem,  and  without  reference  marks  to  mar  the  pages,  so  that 
the  selection  may  be  read,  if  desired,  without  any  interference 
from  the  notes. 

Within  the  limits  of  a  volume  like  this,  only  the  shorter  poems 
could  find  a  place.  Most  valuable  extracts  from  the  longer 
works  might  have  been  given  ;  but  this  is  always  a  questionable 
method  of  dealing  with  the  best  writers,  with  those  especially 
whose  thought  is  strictly  consecutive,  while  the  effect  of  par- 
ticular passages  depends  to  a  large  extent  on  their  setting  and 
their  relation  to  the  work  as  a  whole.  The  only*  exception  to 
this  is  the  treatment  of  "  Christmas  Eve  and  Easter  Day,''  with 
extracts  from  which  this  volume  closes.  That  remarkable  work 
occupies  a  middle  position  between  the  shorter  and  the  longer 
poems  of  our  author  ;  and,  though  too  long  for  insertion  entire, 
is  yet  so  important,  that  it  seemed  very  desirable  to  give  some 
idea  of  it.  In  furnishing  a  series  of  extracts  from  this  work,  an 
attempt  has  been  made  to  reduce  the  disadvantage  above 
referred  to  by  supplying  along  with  them  a  slight  sketch  or 
"  argument,"  so  as  to  give  some  idea,  to  those  unacquainted  with 
it,  of  the  course  of  thought  throughout. 

It  is  right  to  say  that  Mr.  Browning  has  given  his  kind 
permission  for  the  publication  in  the  United  States  of  this 
Selection,  and  also  of  the  Notes,  for  which,  however,  as  for  the 
selection  itself,  he  is  in  no  wise  responsible. 


*  It  has  been  found  necessary  also  to  give  only  the  latter  part  of  the  noble 
poenn  "  Saul."  A  slight  sketch  of  the  part  omitted  is  given,  and  the  poem 
is  continued  vv^ithout  interruption  to  its  close. 


CONTENTS. 

FAGF 

Introductory    i 

Home  Thoughts,  from  Abroad  ii 

Home  Thoughts,  from  the  Sea 12 

'•  How  they  brought  the  Good  News  from  Ghent  to  Aix  "  13 

echetlos    16 

Helen's  Tower   18 

Shop 19 

The  Boy  and  the  Angel  25 

The  Patriot 29 

Instans  Tyrannus 31 

The  Lost  Leader  34 

Love  among  the  Ruins  36 

My  Star 40 

RuDEL  TO  the  Lady  of  Trii'oli  41 

Never  the  Time  and  the  Place   43 

Wanting  is — What? 44 

Evelyn  Hope 45 

Prospice 48 

Good,  to  Forgive 49 

Touch  him  ne'er  so  Lightly   51 

Popularity 52 

The  Guardian  Angel 56 

Deaf  and  Dumb ; 59 

Abt  Vogler 60 

One  Word  More    68 

Saul 77 

An  Epistle   87 

Christmas-Eve    100 

Easter-Day  121 


A  SELECTION    FROM    THE   POEMS 
OF   ROBERT   BROWNING. 


HOME   THOUGHTS,   FROM   ABROAD. 

Oh,  to  be  in  England  now  that  April 's  there, 

And  whoever  wakes  in  England  sees,  some  morning,  unaware, 

That  the  lowest  boughs  and  the  brushwood  sheaf 

Round  the  elm-tree  bole  are  in  tiny  leaf. 

While  the  chaffinch  sings  on  the  orchard  bough 

In  England — now  ! 

And  after  April,  when  May  follows. 

And  the  white-throat  builds,  and  all  the  swallows  ! 

Hark,  where  my  blossomed  pear-tree  in  the  hedge 

Leans  to  the  field  and  scatters  on  the  clover 

Blossoms  and  dewdrops — at  the  bent  spray's  edge — 

That 's  the  wise  thrush  ;  he  sings  each  song  twice  over 

Lest  you  should  think  he  never  could  recapture 

The  first  fine  careless  rapture  ! 

And,  though  the  fields  look  rough  with  hoary  dcw, 

All  will  be  gay  when  noontide  wakes  anew 

The  buttercups,  the  little  children's  dower 

— Far  brighter  than  this  gaudy  melon-flower ! 


12 


HOME   THOUGHTS,   FROM   THE   SEA. 

Nobly,  nobly  Cape  Saint  Vincent  to  the  North-West  died 

away; 
Sunset  ran,  one  glorious  blood-red,  reeking  into  Cadiz  Bay ; 
Bluish  'mid  the  burning  water,  full  in  face  Trafalgar  lay ; 
In  the  dimmest  North-East  distance  dawned  Gibraltar  grand 

and  grey ; 
"  Here  and  here  did  England  help  me  :   how  can  I  help 

England  ?  " — say. 
Whoso  turns  as  I,  this  evening,  turn  to  God  to  praise  and 

pray, 
While  Jove's  planet  rises  yonder,  silent  over  Africa. 


The  former  of  these  companion  poems  may  have  been  written  from  Italy 
or  the  south  of  Spain,  as  would  appear  from  the  last  line  of  it.  Mr.  E.  C. 
Stedman,  one  of  the  severest  of  Browning's  appreciative  critics,  commenting 
(in  his  "  Victorian  Poets  ")  on  the  lines  beginning  "That's  the  wise  thrufh," 
says:— "  Having  in  mind  Shakespeare  and  Shelley,  I  nevertheless  think 
these  three  hnes  the  finest  ever  written  touching  the  song  of  a  bird. " 

In  the  latter  poem,  the  course  is  from  the  southern  point  of  Portugal 
through  the  Straits.  "  Here  and  here" — the  reference  is  to  the  oattles  of 
•Cape  St.  Vincent  (1796)  and  Trafalgar  (1805),  and  perhaps  to  me  defenci 
of  Gibraltar  (1782). 


13 


"HOW   THEY   BROUGHT   THE   GOOD 
NEWS    FROM    GHENT   TO   AIX." 

[i6-.] 


I  SPRANG  to  the  stirrup,  and  Joris,  and  he ; 

I  galloped,  Dirck  galloped,  we  galloped  all  three ; 

'•'  Good  speed  !  "  cried  the  watch,  as  the  gate-bolts  undrew  ; 

"  Speed  !  "  echoed  the  wall  to  us  galloping  through  ; 

Behind  shut  the  postern,  the  lights  sank  to  rest, 

And  into  the  midnight  we  galloped  abreast. 

II. 
Not  a  word  to  each  other ;  we  kept  the  great  pace 
Neck  by  neck,  stride  by  stride,  never  changing  our  place ; 
I  turned  in  my  saddle  and  made  its  girths  tight, 
Then  shortened  each  stirrup,  and  set  the  pique  right, 
Rebuckled  the  cheek-strap,  chained  slacker  the  bit, 
Nor  galloped  less  steadily  Roland  a  whit. 

:ii. 

T  was  moonset  at  starting  ;  but  while  we  drew  near 

Lokeren,  the  cocks  crew  and  twilight  dawned  clear ; 

At  Boom,  a  great  yellow  star  came  out  to  see  ; 

At  Diiffeld,  't  was  morning  as  plain  as  could  be  ; 

And  from  Mecheln  church-steeple  we  heard  the  lialf-chime, 

So,  Joris  broke  silence  with,  "  Yet  there  is  time  ! " 


IV. 

At  Aershot,  up  leaped  of  a  sudden  the  sun, 
And  against  him  the  cattle  stood  black  every  one, 
To  stare  thro'  the  mist  at  us  galloping  past, 
And  I  saw  my  stout  galloper  Roland  at  last, 
With  resolute  shoulders,  each  butting  away 
The  haze,  as  some  bluff  river  headland  its  spray  : 

• 

V. 

And  his  low  head  and  crest,  just  one  sharp  ear  bent  back 
For  my  voice,  and  the  other  pricked  out  on  his  track ; 
And  one  eye's  black  intelligence, — ever  that  glance 
O'er  its  white  edge  at  me,  his  own  master,  askance ! 
And  the  thick  heavy  spume-flakes  which  aye  and  anon 
His  fierce  lips  shook  upwards  in  galloping  on. 

VI. 

By  Hasselt,  Dirck  groaned  ;  and  cried  Joris,  "  Stay  spur  I 
"  Your  Roos  galloped  bravely,  the  fault's  not  in  her, 
"We'll  remember  at  Aix" — for  one  heard  the  quick  w^heeze 
Of  her  chest,  saw  the  stretched  neck  and  staggering  knees. 
And  sunk  tail,  and  horrible  heave  of  the  flank, 
As  down  on  her  haunches  she  shuddered  and  sank. 

VII. 

So,  we  were  left  galloping,  Joris  and  I, 

Past  Looz  and  past  Tongres,  no  cloud  in  the  sky ; 

The  broad  sun  above  laughed  a  pitiless  laugh, 

'Neath  our  feet  broke  the  brittle  bright  stubble  like  chaff; 

Till  over  by  Dalhem  a  dome-spire  sprang  white, 

And  "  Gallop,"  gasped  Joris,  "  for  Aix  is  in  sight ! " 


15 


VIII. 
'  How  they'll  greet  us  ! " — and  all  in  a  moment  his  roan 
Rolled  neck  and  croup  over,  lay  dead  as  a  stone  ; 
And  there  was  my  Roland  to  bear  the  whole  weight 
Of  the  news  which  alone  could  save  Aix  from  her  fate, 
With  his  nostrils  like  pits  full  of  blood  to  the  brim. 
And  with  circles  of  red  for  his  eye-sockets'  rim. 

IX. 

Then  I  cast  loose  my  buffcoat,  each  holster  let  fall, 

Shook  off  both  my  jack-boots,  let  go  belt  and  all, 

Stood  up  in  the  stirrup,  leaned,  patted  his  ear. 

Called  my  Roland  his  pet-name,  my  horse  without  peer  ; 

Clapped  my  hands,  laughed  and  sang,  any  noise,  bad  or  good. 

Till  at  length  into  Aix  Roland  galloped  and  stood. 

X. 

And  all  I  remember  is,  friends  flocking  round 
As  I  sat  with  his  head  'twixt  my  knees  on  the  ground  ; 
And  no  voice  but  was  praising  this  Roland  of  mine. 
As  I  poured  down  his  throat  our  last  measure  of  wine, 
Which  (the  burgesses  voted  by  common  consent) 
Was  no  more  than  his  due  who  brought  good  news  from 
Ghent. 

The  indefiniteness  of  the  date  at  the  head  of  this  poem  will  be  best 
explained  by  the  following  extract  from  a  letter  of  Mr.  Browning's,  pub- 
lished in  1881  in  the  Bostoji  Literary  \Aorld  :— 

"There  is  no  sort  of  historical  foundation  about  'Good  News  From 
Ghent.'  I  wrote  it  under  the  bulwark  of  a  vessel  off  the  African  coast, 
after  I  had  been  at  sea  long  enough  to  appreciate  even  the  fancy  of  a  gallop 
on  the  back  of  a  certain  good  horse  '  York,'  then  in  my  stable  at  home." 

This  poem,  therefore,  widely  known  and  appreciated  as  one  of  the  most 
stirring  in  the  language,  may  be  regarded  as  a  living  picture  to  illustrate 
the  pages— no  page  in  particular— of  Motley. 

As  jjarallels  in  American  literature,  reference  may  be  made  to  "  I'aul 
Reveres  Ride,"  by  Longfello.w,  and  "Sheridan's  Ride,"  by  T.  13.  Rcade. 


i6 


ECHETLOS. 


Here  is  a  story,  shall  stir  you  !    Stand  up,  Greeks  dead  and 


gone. 


Who  breasted,  beat  Barbarians,  stemmed  Persia  rolling  on, 
Did   the   deed   and   saved   the  world,  since   the   day  was 
Marathon ! 

No  man  but  did  his  manliest,  kept  rank  and  fought  away 
In  his  tribe  and  file  :  up,  back,  out,  down — was  the  spear- 
arm  play : 
Like  a  wind-whipt  branchy  wood,  all  spear-arms  a-swing  that 
day  ! 

But  one  man  kept  no  rank,  and  his  sole  arm  plied  no  spear, 
As  a  flashing  came  and  went,  and  a  form  i'  the  van,  the  rear, 
Brightened  the  battle  up,  for  he  blazed  now  there,  now  here. 

Nor  helmed  nor  shielded,  he  !  but,  a  goat-skin  all  his  wear. 
Like  a  tiller  of  the  soil,  with  a  clown's  limbs  broad  and  bare, 
Went  he  ploughing  on  and  on  :  he  pushed  with  a  plough- 
man's share. 

Did  the  weak  mid-line  give  way,  as  tunnies  on  whom  the 

shark 
Precipitates  his  bulk  ?     Did  the  right-wing  halt  when,  stark 
On  his  heap  of  slain,  lay  stretched  Kallimachos  Polemarch  ? 

Did  the  steady  phalanx  falter  ?    To  the  rescue,  at  the  need, 
The  clown  was  ploughing  Persia,  clearing  Greek  earth  of 

weed. 
As  he  routed  through  the  Sakian  and  rooted  up  the  Mede. 


17 

But  the  deed  done,  battle  won, — nowhere  to  be  descried 
On  the  meadow,  by  the  stream,  at  the  marsh, — look  far  and 

wide 
From  the  foot  of  the  mountain,  no,  to  the  last  bloodplashed 

sea-side, — 

Not  anywhere  on  view  blazed  the  large  limbs  thonged  and 

brown, 
Shearing  and  clearing  still  with  the  share  before  which — 

down 
To  the  dust  went  Persia's  pomp,  as  he  ploughed  for  Greece, 

that  clown  ! 

How  spake  the  Oracle  ?     "  Care  for  no  name  at  all ! 
Say  but  just  this  :     We  praise  one   helpful  whom  we  call 
The  Holder  of  the  Ploughshare.      The  great  deed  ne'er 
grows  small." 

Not  the  great  name  !  Sing — woe  for  the  great  name  Miltiade's, 
And  its  end  at  Paros  isle  !   Woe  for  Themistokles — 
Satrap  in  Sardis  court !    Name  not  the  clown  like  these  ! 

The  name,  Echeilos,  is  derived  from  exeT?.7j,  a  plough  handle.  It  is  not 
strictly  a  proper  name,  but  an  appellative,  meaning  "the  Holder  of  the 
Ploughshare."  The  story  is  found  in  Pausanias,  author  of  the  "  Itinerary 
of  Greece  "  ( i,  15,  32).  Nothing  further  is  necessary  in  order  to  understand 
this  little  poem  and  appreciate  its  rugged  strength  than  familiarity  with  the 
battle  of  Marathon,  and  some  knowledge  of  Miltiades  and  Themistocles, 
the  one  known  as  the  hero  of  Marathon,  and  the  other  as  the  hero  of 
Salamis.  The  lesson  of  the  poem  ( "  The  great  cfeed  ne'er  grows  small,  not 
the  great  Name/")  is  taught  in  a  way  not  likely  to  be  forgotten.  One  is 
reminded  of  another,  who  wished  to  be  nameless,  heard  only  as  "the  voice 
of  one  crying  in  the  wilderness  !  " 

The  ellipsis  in  thought  between  the  eighth  and  ninth  stanzas  is  so  easily 
supplied  that  it  is  noticed  here  only  as  a  simple  illustration  of  what  is  snme- 
times  the  occasion  of  difficulty  (see  Introduction,  p.  iii ).  It  would  only  have 
ler)gthened  the  poem  and  weakened  it  to  have  inserted  a  stanza  telling  in  so 
many  words  that  when  the  hero  could  not  be  found,  a  message  was  sent  to 
the  Oracle  to  enquire  who  it  could  be. 

As  a  companion  to  "  Echetlos"  maybe  read  the  stirring  poem  of  "  Herv(^ 
Riel." 


i8 

HELEN'S     TOWER. 

'  E\eV//   eiri    irvpyw. 

Who  hears  of  Helen's  Tower,  may  dream  perchance, 
How  the  Greek  Beauty  from  the  Scsean  Gate 
Gazed  on  old  friends  unanimous  in  hate, 

Death-doom'd  because  of  her  fair  countenance. 

Hearts  would  leap  otherwise,  at  thy  advance, 
Lady,  to  whom  this  Tower  is  consecrate  : 
Like  hers,  thy  face  once  made  all  eyes  elate, 

Yet,  unlike  hers,  was  bless'd  by  every  glance. 

The  Tower  of  Hate  is  outworn,  far  and  strange  : 
A  transitory  shame  of  long  ago. 

It  dies  into  the  sand  from  which  it  sprang  : 
But  thine,  Love's  rock-built  Tower,  shall  fear  no  change  : 
God's  self  laid  stable  Earth's  foundations  so. 
When  all  the  morning-stars  together  sang. 

The  tower  is  one  built  by  Lord  Dufferin,  in  memory  of  his  mother  Helen, 
Countess  of  Gifford,  on  one  of  his  estates  in  Ireland.  "  The  Greek  Beauty" 
is,  of  course,  Helen  of  Troy,  and  the  reference  in  the  alternative  heading  is 
apparently  to  that  fine  passage  in  the  third  book  of  the  "  Iliad,"  where 
Helen  meets  the  Trojan  chiefs  at  the  Scsean  Gate  (see  line  154,  which 
speaks  of  "  Helen  at  the  Tower  "). 

On  the  last  two  hnes,  founded  of  course  on  the  well-known  passage  in 
Job  (xxxviii.  4 — 7),  compare  Dante  : 

"  E  il  sol  montava  in  su  con  quelle  slelle 
Ch'eran  con  lui,  quando  I'Amor  Divino 
Mosse  da  prima  quelle  cose  belle. " 

"Aloft  the  sun  ascended  with  those  stars 
That  with  him  rose,  when  Love  Divine  first  moved 
Those  its  fair  works." 

— Inferno  I.  38 — 40. 


19 

SHOP. 

I. 

So,  friend,  your  shop  was  all  your  house  S 
Its  front,  astonishing  the  street, 

Invited  view  from  man  and  mouse 
To  what  diversity  of  treat 
Behind  its  glass — the  single  sheet ! 

II. 

What  gimcracks,  genuine  Japanese  : 
Gape -jaw  and  goggle-eye,  the  frog ; 

Dragons,  owls,  monkeys,  beetles,  geese ; 
Some  crush-nosed  human-hearted  dog : 
Queer  names,  too,  such  a  catalogue  ! 

III. 

I  thought  "  And  he  who  owns  the  wealth 
"  Which  blocks  the  window's  vastitude, 

"  — Ah,  could  I  peep  at  him  by  stealth 
"  Behind  his  ware,  pass  shop,  intrude 
"  On  house  itself,  what  scenes  were  viewed  ! 

IV. 

"  If  wide  and  showy  thus  the  shop, 
"  What  must  the  habitation  prove  ? 

"  The  true  house  with  no  name  a-top — 
"  The  mansion,  distant  one  remove, 
"Once  get  him  off  his  traffic  groove  ' 


20 


V. 


"  Pictures  he  likes,  or  books  perhaps  ; 
"  And  as  for  buying  most  and  best, 

"  Commend  me  to  these  city  chaps  '. 
'•  Or  else  he  's  social,  takes  his  rest 
"  On  Sundays,  with  a  Lord  for  guest. 


VI. 

"  Some  suburb-palace,  parked  about 
"  And  gated  grandly,  built  last  year : 

"  The  four-mile  walk  to  keep  off  gout ; 
"  Or  big  seat  sold  by  bankrupt  peer  : 
"  But  then  he  takes  the  rail,  that  's  clear. 


VII. 

"  Or,  stop  I     I  wager,  taste  selects 

"  Some  out  o'  the  way,  some  all-unknown 

^  Retreat :  the  neighbourhood  suspects 
"  Little  that  he  who  rambles  lone 
"  Makes  Rothschild  tremble  on  his  throne  !  " 

VIII. 

Nowise  !     Nor  Mayfair  residence 
Fit  to  receive  and  entertain, — 

Nor  Hampstead  villa's  kind  defence 

From  noise  and  crowd,  from  dust  and  drain,- 
Nor  country-box  was  soul's  domain  ! 


21 


IX. 


Nowise !     At  back  of  all  that  spiead 
Of  merchandize,  woe  's  me,  I  find 

A  hole  i'  the  wall  v/here,  heels  by  head, 
The  owner  couched,  his  ware  behind, 
— In  cupboard  suited  to  his  mind. 


X. 

For,  why  ?     He  saw  no  use  of  life 
But,  while  he  drove  a  roaring  trade, 

To  chuckle  "Customers  are  rife  I  " 
To  chafe  "  So  much  hard  cash  outlaid 
"  Yet  zero  in  my  profits  made ! 

XI. 

"  This  novelty  costs  pains,  but — takes  .> 
"  Cumbers  my  counter  !     Stock  no  more  ! 

"  This  article,  no  such  great  shakes, 
"  Fizzes  like  wild  fire  ?     Underscore 
"  The  cheap  thing — thousands  to  the  fore  !  " 

XII. 

'T  was  lodging  best  to  live  most  nigh 
(Cramp,  coffinlike  as  crib  might  be) 

Receipt  of  Custom  ;  ear  and  eye 

Wanted  no  outworld  :  "  Hear  and  see 
"  The  bustle  in  the  shop  ! "  quoth  he. 


22 


XIII. 


My  fancy  of  a  merchant-prince 

Was  different.      Through  his  wares  we  groped 
Our  darkhng  way  to — not  to  mince 

The  matter — no  black  den  where  moped 

The  master  if  we  interloped  ! 

XIV. 

Shop  was  shop  only  :  household-stuff? 

What  did  he  want  with  comforts  there  ? 
"  Walls,  ceiling,  floor,  stay  blank  and  rough, 

"  So  goods  on  sale  show  rich  and  rare ! 

"  Sell  and  scud  home,"  be  shop's  affair  ! 


XV. 

What  might  he  deal  in  ?     Gems,  suppose  I 
Since  somehow  business  must  be  done 

At  cost  of  trouble, — see,  he  throws 
You  choice  of  jewels,  ever3'one 
Good,  better,  best,  star,  moon  and  sun  ! 


XVI. 

Which  lies  within  your  power  of  purse  ? 

This  ruby  that  would  tip  aright 
Solomon's  sceptre  ?     Oh,  your  nurse 

Wants  simply  coral,  the  delight 
Of  teething  baby, — stuff  to  bite  ! 


23 


XVII. 


Howe'er  your  choice  fell,  straight  you  took 
Your  purchase,  prompt  your  money  rang 

On  counter, — scarce  the  man  forsook 
His  study  of  the  "  Times,"  just  swang 
Till-Avard  his  hand  that  stopped  the  clang,- 


XVIII. 

Then  off  made  buyer  with  a  prize, 
Then  seller  to  his  "  Times  "  returned, 

And  so  did  day  wear,  wear,  till  eyes 
Brightened  apace,  for  rest  was  earned  : 
He  locked  door  long  ere  candle  burned. 

XIX. 

,  And  whither  went  he  ?     Ask  himself, 

Not  me  !     To  change  of  scene,  I  think. 
Once  sold  the  ware  and  pursed  the  pelf, 
Chaffer  was  scarce  his  meat  and  drink, 
Nor  all  his  music — money-chink. 

XX. 

Because  a  man  has  shop  to  mind 

In  time  and  place,  since  flesh  must  live. 

Needs  spirit  lack  all  life  behind, 
All  stray  thoughts,  fancies  fugitive. 
All  loves  except  what  trade  can  give  ? 


24. 


XXI. 


I  want  to  know  a  butcher  paints, 
A  baker  rhymes  for  his  pursuit, 

Candlestick-maker  much  acquaints 
His  soul  with  song,  or,  haply  mute, 
Blows  out  his  brains  upon  the  flute ! 

XXII. 

But  -  -shop  each  day  and  all  day  long ! 
Friend,  your  good  angel  slept,  your  star 

Suffered  eclipse,  fate  did  you  wrong ! 
From  where  these  sorts  of  treasures  are, 
There  should  our  hearts  be — Christ,  how  far  ! 


There  ouglit  to  be  far  more  in  a  man  than  can  be  put  into  a  front  window. 
This  man  had  all  sorts  of  "curios"  in  his  shop  window,  but  there  was 
nothing  rich  or  rare  in  his  soul  ;  and  so  there  was  room  for  all  of  him  in  a 
den  which  would  not  have  held  the  hundredth  part  of  his  wares.  The  con- 
temptible manner  of  the  man's  life  is  strikingly  brought  out  by  the  various 
suppositions  (stanzas  5,  6,  7)  so  different  from  the  poor  reality  (8 — 9).  All 
he  cared  for  was  business,  which  made  him  "chuckle  "  on  the  one  hand  or 
"chafe  "  on  the  other,  according  as  times  were  good  or  bad  (10).  Even  in 
his  business  it  was  not  the  real  excellence  of  his  wares  he  cared  for,  only 
their  saleability  (11).  A  merchant  prince  is  a  very  different  person  (13 — 19). 
The  last  three  stanzas  give  the  lesson  in  a  style  partly  humorous,  but  passing 
in  the  end  to  an  impressive  solemnity. 

In  connection  with  this  should  be  read  the  companion  piece,  "House,"  to 
which  reference  ;s  made  in  the  Introduction. 


25 


THE    BOY    AND    THE    ANGEL. 

Morning,  evening,  noon  and  night, 
"  Praise  God  !  "  sang  Theocrite. 

Then  to  his  poor  trade  he  turned, 
Whereby  the  daily  meal  was  earned. 

Hard  he  laboured,  long  and  well ; 
O'er  his  work  the  boy's  curls  fell. 

But  ever,  at  each  period, 

He  stopped  and  sang,  "  Praise  God ! " 

Then  back  again  his  curls  he  threw, 
And  cheerful  turned  to  work  anew. 

Said  Blaise,  the  listening  monk,  "  Well  done ; 
"  I  doubt  not  thou  art  heard,  my  son  : 

"  As  well  as  if  thy  voice  to-day 

"  Were  praising  God,  the  Pope's  great  way. 

"  This  Easter  Day,  the  Pope  at  Rome 
"  Praises  God  from  Peter's  dome." 

Said  Theocrite,  "  Would  God  that  I 

"  Might  praise  Him,  that  great  way,  and  die  !  " 

Night  passed,  day  shone,     . 
And  Theocrite  was  gone. 


26 

With  God  a  day  endures  alway, 
A  thousand  years  are  but  a  day. 

God  said  in  heaven,  "  Nor  day  nor  night 
"  Now  brings  the  voice  of  my  dehght." 

Then  Gabriel,  Hke  a  rainbow's  birth. 
Spread  his  wings  and  sank  to  earth  ; 

Entered,  in  flesh,  the  empty  cell, 

Lived  there,  and  played  the  craftsman  well ; 

And  morning,  evening,  noon  and  night, 
Praised  God  in  place  of  Theocrite. 

.  And  from  a  boy,  to  youth  he  grew  : 
The  man  put  off  the  stripling's  hue  : 

• 

The  man  matured  and  fell  away 
Into  the  season  of  decay  : 

And  ever  o'er  the  trade  he  bent. 
And  ever  lived  on  earth  content. 

(He  did  God's  will ;  to  him,  all  one 
If  on  the  earth  or  in  the  sun.) 

God  said,  "  A  praise  is  in  mine  ear ; 
"  There  is  no  doubt  in  it,  no  fear : 

"  So  sing  old  worlds,  and  so 

"  New  worlds  that  from  my  footstool  go. 


27 

"  Clearer  loves  sound  other  ways : 
"  I  miss  my  little  human  praise." 

Then  fortli  sprang  Gabriel's  wings,  off  fell 
The  flesh  disguise,  remained  the  celL 

T  was  Easter  Daj- :  He  flew  to  Rome, 
And  paused  above  Saint  Peters  dome. 

In  the  tiring-room  close  by 
The  great  outer  gallerj-, 

With  his  holy  vestments  dight, 
Stood  the  new  Pope,  Theocrite  : 

And  all  his  past  career 
Came  back  upon  him  clear. 

Since  when,  a  boy,  he  plied  his  trade, 
Till  on  his  life  the  sickness  weighed  ; 


*o' 


And  in  his  cell,  when  death  drew  near, 
An  angel  in  a  dream  brought  cheer : 


*o^ 


And,  rising  from  the  sickness  drear, 
He  grew  a  priest,  and  now  stood  here. 

To  the  East  with  praise  he  turned. 
And  on  his  sight  the  angel  burned. 

"  I  bore  thee  from  thy  craftsman's  cell, 
*'  And  set  thee  here ;  I  did  not  wen. 


28 

"  Vainly  I  left  my  angel-sphere, 

"  Vain  was  thy  dream  of  many  a  year. 

"  Thy  voice's  praise  seemed  weak ;  it  dropped-— 
"  Creation's  chorus  stopped  ! 

"Go  back  and  praise  again 

"  The  early  way,  while  I  remain. 

"  With  that  weak  voice  of  our  disdain, 
"  Take  up  creation's  pausing  strain. 

"  Back  to  the  cell  and  poor  employ  : 
"  Resume  the  craftsman  and  the  boy  !  " 

Theocrite  grew  old  at  home  ; 

A  new  Pope  dwelt  in  Peter's  dome. 

One  vanished  as  the  other  died  : 
They  sought  God  side  by  side. 

The  lesson  of  this  beautiful  fancy  is  the  complement  of  the  "Shop" 
lesson.  Even  drudgery  may  be  divine  ;  since  the  will  of  God  is  the  work 
to  be  done,  no  matter  whether  under  St.  Peter's  dome  or  in  the  cell  of  the 
craftsman  (the  Boy) — "  all  one,  if  on  the  earth  or  in  the  sun"  (the  Angel). 

The  poem  is  so  full  of  exquisite  things,  that  only  a  few  can  be  noted. 
The  value  of  the  "little  human  praise"  to  God  Himself  (distich  12),  all 
the  dearer  because  of  the  doubts  and  fears  in  it  (20 — 22)  ;  and  the  contrast 
between  its  seeming  weakness  and  insignificance  and  its  real  importance  as 
a  necessary  part  of  the  great  chorus  of  creation  (34)  ;  the  eager  desire  of 
Gabriel  to  anticipate  the  will  of  God,  and  his  content  to  live  on  earth  and 
bend  over  a  conmion  trade,  if  only  thus  he  can  serve  Him  best  (13 — 19)  ; 
and  again  the  content  of  the  "  new  pope  Theocrite  "  to  go  back  to  his  "cell 
and  poor  employ  "  and  fill  out  the  measure  of  his  day  of  service,  growing 
old  at  home,  while  Gabriel  as  contentedly  takes  his  place  as  pope  (probably 
a  harder  trial  than  the  more  menial  service)  and  waits  for  the  time  when 
both  "sought  God  side  by  side" — these  are  some  of  the  fine  and  far 
reaching  thoughts  which  find  simple  and  beautiful  e.xpression  here. 

Longfellow's  "  King  Robert  of  Sicily,"  though  not  really  parallel,  has 
points  of  similarity  to  "The  Boy  and  the  .\ngel." 


29 


THE    PATRIOT. 


AN    OLD    STORY. 


It  was  roses,  roses,  all  the  way. 

With  myrtle  mixed  in  my  path  like  mad  : 
The  house-roofs  seemed  to  heave  and  sway, 

The  church-spires  flamed,  such  flags  they  had, 
A  year  ago  on  this  very  day. 


II. 

The  air  broke  into  a  mist  with  bells. 

The  old  walls  rocked  with  the  crowd  and  cries. 
Had  I  said,  "  Good  folk,  mere  noise  repels — 

"  But  give  me  your  sun  from  yonder  skies  ! " 
They  had  answered  "  And  afterward,  what  else  }  " 


III. 

Alack,  it  was  I  who  leaped  at  the  sun 
To  give  it  my  loving  friends  to  keep  ! 

Nought  man  could  do,  have  I  left  undone 
And  you  see  my  harvest,  what  I  reap 

This  very  day,  ivjw  a  year  is  run. 


30 


IV. 

There  's  nobody  on  the  house-tops  now — 

Just  a  palsied  few  at  the  windows  set ; 
For  the  best  of  the  sight  is,  all  allow, 

At  the  Shambles'  Gate — or,  better  yet, 
By  the  very  scaffold's  foot,  I  trow. 

V. 

I  go  in  the  rain,  and,  more  than  needs, 

A  rope  cuts  both  my  wrists  behind  , 
And  I  think,  by  the  feel,  my  forehead  bleeds, 

For  they  fling,  whoever  has  a  mind, 
Stones  at  me  for  my  year's  misdeeds. 

VI. 

Thus  I  entered,  and  thus  I  go  ! 

In  triumphs,  people  have  dropped  down  dead. 
"  Paid  by  the  world,  what  dost  thou  owe 

Me  ?  " — God  might  question  ;  now  instead, 
'T  is  God  shall  repay  :  I  am  safer  so. 

The  Patriot,  on  his  way  to  the  scaffold,  surrounded  by  a  hooting  crowd, 
remembers  how,  just  a  year  ago,  the  same  people  had  been  mad  in 
their  enthusiasm  for  him.  Anything  at  all,  however  extravagant,  would 
have  been  too  little  for  them  to  do  for  him  (stanza  2 ;  cf  Gal.  iv.  15,  16) ; 

but  now !      The  fourth  stanza  is  very  powerful.      All  have  gone  who 

can,  to  be  ready  to  see  the  execution  ;  only  the  "  palsied  few,"  who  cannot, 
are  at  the  windows  to  see  him  pass.  In  the  last  stanza  the  thought  of  a 
more  sudden  contrast  still  is  presented.  A  man  may  drop  dead  in  the 
midst  of  a  triumph,  to  find  that  in  its  brief  plaudits  he  has  his  reward, 
while  a  vast  account  stands  against  him  at  the  higher  tribunal  Far  better 
die  amid  the  execrations  of  men  and  find  the  contrast  reversed. 

It  is  "an  old  story,"  and  therefore  general;  but  one  naturally  thinks  of 
such  cases  as  Arnold  of  Brescia,  or  the  tribune  Rienzi.  A  higher  Name 
than  these  need  not  be  introduced  here,  in  proof  of  the  people's  fickleness  ! 


31 

INSTANS     TYRANNUS. 


Of  the  million  or  two,  more  or  less, 
I  rule  and  possess, 
One  man,  for  some  cause  undefined. 
Was  least  to  my  mind. 

11. 

I  struck  him,  he  grovelled  of  course — 

For,  what  was  his  force  ? 

I  pinned  him  to  earth  with  my  weight 

And  persistence  of  hate  ; 

And  he  lay,  would  not  moan,  would  not  curse, 

As  his  lot  might  be  worse. 

III. 

"Were  the  object  less  mean,  would  he  stand 

"  At  the  swing  of  my  hand  ! 

"  For  obscurity  helps  him,  and  blots 

"  The  hole  where  he  squats." 

So,  I  set  my  five  wits  on  the  stretch 

To  inveigle  the  wretch. 

All  in  vain  !     Gold  and  jewels  I  threw 

Still  he  couched  there  perdue  ; 

I  tempted  his  blood  and  his  flesh. 

Hid  in  roses  my  mesh. 

Choicest  cates  and  the  flagon's  best  spilth 

Still  he  kept  to  his  filth. 


32 


IV. 

Had  he  kith  now  or  kin,  were  access 

To  his  heart,  did  I  press  • 

Just  a  son  or  a  mother  to  seize  ! 

No  such  booty  as  these. 

Were  it  simply  a  friend  to  pursue 

'Mid  my  million  or  two, 

Who  could  pay  me,  in  person  or  pelf, 

What  he  owes  me  himself ! 

No  :  I  could  not  but  smile  through  my  chafe  : 

For  the  fellow  lay  safe 

As  his  mates  do,  the  midge  and  the  nit, 

— Through  minuteness,  to  wit. 

V. 

Then  a  humour  more  great  took  its  place 

At  the  thought  of  his  face  : 

The  droop,  the  low  cares  of  the  mouth. 

The  trouble  uncouth 

'Twixt  the  brows,  all  that  air  one  is  fain 

To  put  out  of  its  pain. 

And,  "  no  !  "  I  admonished  myself, 

"  Is  one  mocked  by  an  elf, 

"  Is  one  baffled  by  toad  or  by  rat  ? 

"  The  gravamen  's  in  that ! 

"  How  the  lion,  who  crouches  to  suit 

"  His  back  to  my  foot, 

"  Would  admire  that  I  stand  in  debate  ! 

"  But  the  small  turns  the  great 

"  If  it  vexes  you, — that  is  the  thing  ! 

"  Toad  or  rat  vex  the  king  ? 

"  Though  I  waste  half  ray  realm  to  unearth 

"  Toad  or  rat,  't  is  well  worth  !  " 


VI. 

So,  I  soberly  laid  my  last  plan 

To  extinguish  the  man. 

Round  his  creep-hole,  with  never  a  break 

Ran  my  fires  for  his  sake  ; 

Over-head,  did  my  thunder  combine 

\\'ith  my  under-ground  mine  : 

Till  I  looked  from  my  labour  content 

To  enjoy  the  event. 

VII. 

When  sudden  .  .  .  how  think  ye,  the  end  ? 

Did  I  say  "without  friend  ?  " 

Say  rather  from  marge  to  blue  marge 

The  whole  sky  grew  his  targe 

"With  the  sun's  self  for  visible  boss. 

While  an  Arm  ran  across 

Which  the  earth  heaved  beneath  like  a  breast 

Where  the  \\Tetch  was  safe  prest ! 

Do  you  see  !     Just  my  vengeance  complete, 

The  man  sprang  to  his  feet. 

Stood  erect,  caught  at  God's  skirts,  and  prayed ! 

— So,  /was  afraid  ! 

"  Instans  Tyrannus,"  the  ^resa/i  tyrant,  the  tyrant  for  the  time  only,  whose 
apparently  illimitable  power  to  hurt  shrivels  into  nothing  in  presence  of  the 
King  of  kings,  whose  dominion  is  everlasting. 

The  poor  victim  of  this  tyrant's  oppression  is  a  true  child  of  God,  but  the 
nobility  of  his  inner  life  is  of  course  concealed  from  the  proud  wretch  who 
despises  him,  and  who,  it  must  be  remembered,  is  the  speaker  throughout. 
We  must  be  careful,  therefore,  to  estimate  at  their  proper  worth  the  ejiithets 
he  applies  and  the  motives  he  attributes  to  the  object  of  his  hate,  //c  can, 
of  course,  think  of  no  other  reason  why  his  victim  "would  not  moan,  would 
not  curse,"  than  that,  if  he  did,  "his  lot  might  be  worse."  And  again, 
when  temptation  failed  to  shake  his  steadfast  patience,  the  tyrant  is  c|uite 
consistent  with  himself,  as  one  of  those  who  call  evil  good,  and  good  evil, 
in  speaking  of  him  as  still  keeping  "  to  his  filth."  The  last  stanza  is  mag- 
niftcent.     Has  the  power  of  prayer  ever  been  set  forth  in  nobler  language? 

C 


34 
THE    LOST    LEADER, 


Just  for  a  handful  of  silver  he  left  us, 

Just  for  a  riband  to  stick  in  his  coat — 
Found  the  one  gift  of  which  fortune  bereft  us, 

Lost  all  the  others,  she  lets  us  devote ; 
They,  with  the  gold  to  give,  doled  him  out  silver. 

So  much  was  theirs  who  so  little  allowed  : 
How  all  our  copper  had  gone  for  his  service  ! 

Rags — were  they  purple,  his  heart  had  been  proud  ! 
We  that  had  loved  him  so,  followed  him,  honoured  him. 

Lived  in  his  mild  and  magnificent  eye, 
Learned  his  great  language,  caught  his  clear  accents, 

Made  him  our  pattern  to  live  and  to  die  ! 
Shakespeare  was  of  us,  Milton  was  for  us, 

Burns,   Shelley,   were  with  us,  —  they  watch    from   their 
graves ! 
He  alone  breaks  from  the  van  and  the  freemen. 

He  alone  sinks  to  the  rear  and  the  slaves  ! 

II. 

We  shall  march  prospering, — not  thro'  his  presence  ; 

Songs  may  inspirit  us, — not  from  his  lyre  ; 
Deeds  will  be  done, — while  he  boasts  his  quiescence, 

Still  bidding  crouch  whom  the  rest  bade  aspire  : 
Blot  out  his  name,  then,  record  one  lost  soul  more, 

One  task  more  declined,  one  more  footpath  untrod. 
One  more  devil's-triumph  and  sorrow  for  angels, 

One  more  wrong  to  man,  one  more  insult  to  God  ! 


35 

Life's  night  begins  :  let  him  never  come  back  to  us  ! 

There  would  .be  doubt,  hesitation  and  pain, 
Forced  praise  on  our  part — the  glimmer  of  twilight, 

Never  glad  confident  morning  again  ! 
Best  fight  on  well,  for  we  taught  him — strike  gallantly, 

Menace  our  heart  ere  we  master  his  own ; 
Then  let  him  receive  the  new  knowledge  and  wait  us, 

Pardoned  in  heaven,  the  first  by  the  throne  ! 


"The  Lost  Leader"  is  supposed  to  be  the  poet  Wordsworth,  who,  on 
accepting  the  laureateship,  abandoned  the  party  of  distinguished  literary 
men  who  had  enthusiastically  supported  the  principles  of  the  French 
Revolution.  It  is  necessary,  of  course,  to  enter  into  the  lofty  enthusiasm  of 
that  party,  and  for  the  moment  to  identify  ourselves  with  it,  in  order  to 
appreciate  the  wonderful  power  and  pathos  of  this  exquisite  poem.  (See 
Wordsworth's  "  French  Revolution  as  it  appeared  to  enthusiasts  at  its 
commencement. ' ' ) 

The  contrasts  are  very  powerful  between  the  one  (paltry)  gift  he  gained, 
and  all  the  others  (love,  loyalty,  life,  &c, )  they  were- privileged  to  devote  (far 
richer  than  mere  possession)  ;  and  again,  between  the  niggardliness  of  his 
new  patrons  with  their  dole  of  silver,  contrasted  with  the  enthusiastic 
devotion  of  his  own  followers,  who  having  nothing  but  "copper,"  would 
yet  put  it  all  at  his  service — having  nothing  bat  "  rags,"  were  yet  so  liberal 
with  what  they  had,  that  had  they  been  purple,  he  would  have  been  proud 
indeed,  seeing  that  "a  riband  to  stick  in  his  coat  "  had  proved  so  great  an 
attraction. 

In  the  second  stanza  the  fountains  of  the  great  deep  of  human  feeling 
are  broken  up.  "Life's  night  begins"  suggests  at  once  the  strength 
of  the  previous  attachment,  and  the  hopelessness  of  the  broken  tie  being  ever 
knit  again  on  earth.  The  best  thing  is  to  be  counted  enemies  now,  and  fight 
against  each  other  as  gallantly  as  they  would  have  fought  together.  At  the 
same  time  there  is  absolute  confidence  in  the  ultimate  triumph  of  the  party  of 
freedom— he  may  "  menace  our  hearts, "  but  we  shall  "  master  his  "—and 
in  the  ultimate  recovery  of  the  lost  leader  himself,  whom  he  hopes  to  find 
"  pardoned  in  heaven,  the  first  by  the  throne." 

C  2 


36 


LOVE    AMONG    THE    RUINS. 


Where  the  quiet  coloured  end  of  evening  smiles, 

Miles  and  miles, 
On  the  solitary  pastures  where  our  sheep 

Half-asleep 
Tinkle  homeward  thro'  the  twilight,  stray  or  stop 

As  they  crop — 
Was  the  site  once  of  a  city  great  and  gay, 

(So  they  say) 
Of  our  country's  very  capital,  its  prince, 

Ages  since. 
Held  his  court  in,  gathered  councils,  wielding  far 

Peace  or  war. 

II. 

Now, — the  country  does  not  even  boast  a  tree, 

As  you  see. 
To  distinguish  slopes  of  verdure,  certain  rills 

From  the  hills 
Intersect  and  give  a  name  to,  (else  they  run 

Into  one) 
Where  the  domed  and  daring  palace  shot  its  spires 

Up  like  fires 
O'er  the  hundred-gated  Circuit  of  a  wall 

Bounding  all, 
Made  of  marble,  men  might  march  on  nor  be  pressed 

Twelve  abreast. 


11 


III. 


And  such  plenty  and  pertection,  see,  of  grass 

Never  was  ! 
Such  a  carpet  as,  this  summer-time,  o'erspreads 

And  embeds 
Every  vestige  of  the  city,  guessed  alone, 

Stock  or  stone — 
Where  a  multitude  of  men  breathed  joy  and  woe 

Long  ago  ; 
Lust  of  glory  pricked  their  hearts  up,  dread  of  shame 

Struck  them  tame ; 
And  that  glory  and  that  shame  alike,  the  gold 

Bought  and  sold. 


IV. 


Now, — the  single  little  turret  that  remains 

On  the  plains, 
By  the  caper  overrooted,  by  the  gourd 

Overscored, 
While  the  patching  houseleek's  head  of  blossom  winks 

Through  the  chinks — 
Marks  the  basement  whence  a  tower  in  ancient  time 

Sprang  sublime. 
And  a  burning  ring,  all  round,  the  chariots  traced 

As  they  raced. 
And  the  monarch  and  his  minions  and  his  dames 

Viewed  the  games. 


38 


V. 


And  I  know — while  thus  the  quiet-coloured  eve 

Smiles  to  leave 
To  their  folding,  all  our  many  tinkling  fleece 

In  such  peace, 
And  the  slopes  and  rills  in  undistinguished  grey 

Melt  away — 
That  a  girl  with  eager  eyes  and  yellow  hair 

Waits  me  there 
In  the  turret  whence  the  charioteers  caught  soul 

For  the  goal. 
When  the   king   looked,  where  she  looks  now,  breathless, 
dumb 

Till  I  come. 


VI. 


But  he  looked  upon  the  city,  every  side, 

Far  and  wide. 
All  the  mountains  topped  with  temples,  all  the  glades 

Colonnades, 
All  the  causeys,  bridges,  aqueducts, — and  then, 

All  the  men  ! 
When  I  do  come,  she  will  speak  not,  she  will  stand 

Either  hand 
On  my  shoulder,  give  her  eyes  the  first  embrace 

Of  my  face. 
Ere  we  rush,  ere  we  extinguish  sight  and  speech 

Each  on  each. 


39 


VII. 


In  one  year  they  sent  a  million  fighters  forth 

South  and  North, 
And  they  built  their  gOuS  a  brazen  pillar  high 

As  the  sky, 
Yet  reserved  a  thousand  chariots  in  full  force — 

Gold,  of  course. 
Oh  heart !  oh  blood  that  freezes,  blood  that  burns ! 

Earth's  returns 
For  whole  centuries  of  folly,  noise  and  sin  ! 

Shut  them  in. 
With  their  triumphs  and  their  glories  and  the  rest  ! 

Love  is  best. 


The  supreme  value  of  love  is  a  constantly  recurring  thought  in  the  poems 
of  our  author.  We  shall  meet  it  in  its  higher  ranges  in  selections  to  come. 
Here  we  are  still  in  the  sphere  of  the  mere  earthly  affection,  with  only  the 
suggestion,  in  contrast  with  the  transitoriness  of  earthly  glory,  of  its  inde- 
structibility. 

No  explanation  seems  needed,  excepting  perhaps  to  call  attention  to  this, 
that  the  "  Httle  turret  "  in  stanza  4  is  not  a  bartizan,  but  a  staircase  turret, 
or  it  could  not  "  mark  the  basement,  whence  a  tower  in  ancient  time  sprang 
sublime." 

Observe,  in  each  stanza,  the  striking  contrast  between  the  former  and  the 
latter  half,  so  balanced  that  the  poem  might  be  divided  into  fourteen  single 
or  six  double  stanzas. 

There  is  not  much  of  the  descriptive  in  the  poems  of  our  author  ;  he  is 
the  poet,  not  of  Nature,  but  of  Human  Nature ;  but  when  he  does  touch 
landscape,  as  here,  it  is  with  the  hand  of  a  master. 


40 


MY    STAR. 

All  that  I  know 

Of  a  certain  star 
Is,  it  can  throw 

(Like  the  angled  spar) 
Now  a  dart  of  red, 

Now  a  dart  of  blue  ; 
Till  my  friends  have  said 

They  would  fain  see,  too, 
My  star  that  dartles  the  red  and  the  blue  ! 
Then  it  stops  like  a  bird  ;  like  a  flower,  hangs  furled  : 

They  must  solace  themselves  with  the  Saturn  above  it. 
What  matter  to  me  if  their  star  is  a  world  ? 

Mine  has  opened  its  soul  to  me  ;  therefore  I  love  it. 


The  follov^ng  sentence,  from  Walter  Besant,  in  "All  Sorts  and  Conditions 
of  Men,"  well  expresses  the  key-thought  of  this  little  gem  of  a  poem  :  "So 
great  is  the  beauty  of  human  nature,  even  in  its  second  rate  or  third  rate 
productions,  that  love  generally  follows  when  one  of  the  two,  by  confession 
or  unconscious  self- betrayal,  stands  revealed  to  the  other." 

Compare  also  the  closing  stanzas  of  "One  Word  More,"  especially 
stanza  i8. 


41 


RUDEL  TO  THE  LADY  OF  TRIPOLI. 


I. 


I  KNOW  a  Mount,  the  gracious  Sun  perceives 

First,  when  he  visits,  last,  too,  when  he  leaves 

The  world  ;  and,  vainly  favoured,  it  repays 

The  day-long  glory  of  his  steadfast  gaze 

By  no  change  of  its  large  calm  front  of  snow. 

And,  underneath  the  Mount,  a  Flower  I  know, 

He  cannot  have  perceived,  that  changes  ever 

At  his  approach ;  and,  in  the  lost  endeavour 

To  live  his  life,  has  parted,  one  by  one, 

With  all  a  flower's  true  graces,  for  the  grace 

Of  being  but  a  foolish  mimic  sun. 

With  ray-like  florets  round  a  disk-like  face. 

Men  nobly  call  by  many  a  name  the  Mount 

As  over  many  a  land  of  theirs  its  large 

Calm  front  of  snow  like  a  triumphal  targe 

Is  reared,  and  still  with  old  names,  fresh  names  vie, 

Each  to  its  proper  praise  and  own  account  : 

Men  call  the  Flower,  the  Sunflower,  sportively. 


II. 

Oh,  Angel  of  the  East,  one,  one  gold  look 
Across  the  waters  to  this  twilight  nook, 
— The  far  sad  waters,  Angel,  to  this  nook  ! 


42 

III. 

Dear  Pilgrim,  art' thou  for  the  East  indeed  ? 

Go  ! — saying  ever  as  thou  dost  proceed, 

That  I,  French  Rudel,  choose  for  my  device 

A  sunflower  outspread  hke  a  sacrifice 

Before  its  idol.     See  !     These  inexpert 

And  hurried  fingers  could  not  fail  to  hurt 

The  woven  picture  ;  't  is  a  woman's  skill 

Indeed ;  but  nothing  baffled  me,  so,  ill 

Or  well,  the  work  is  finished.     Say,  men  feed 

On  songs  I  sing,  and  therefore  bask  the  bees 

On  my  flower's  breast  as  on  a  platform  broad  : 

But,  as  the  flower's  concern  is  not  for  these 

But  solely  for  the  sun,  so  men  applaud 

In  vain  this  Rudel,  he  not  looking  here 

But  to  the  East — the  East  !     Go,  say  this.  Pilgrim  dear  ! 

This  poem  was  first  published  in  "Bells  and  Pomegranates"  under  the 
head  of  "Queen  Worship."  How  exquisite  the  plea  of  the  unnoticed 
Flower,  with  no  pretence  to  vie  with  the  Mountain  in  its  claim  upon  the 
Sun's  attention,  except  this,  that  the  great  unchanging  Mountain  is 
"vainly  favoured,"  while  the  Flower  yields  itself  up  in  ceaseless  and  self- 
forgetting  devotion  to  an  imitation,  however  feeble  and  foolish,  of  the  great 
Sun  Life. 

The  second  stanza  is  very  rich.  There  is  no  mention  in  it  of  Sun  or 
Mountain  or  Flower  ;  but  as  the  Flower  looks  up  to  the  Sun  from  its  nook 
at  the  Mountain's  base,  so  Rudel  yearns  for  "  one  gold  look  "  from  his  Sun, 
the  ' '  Angel  of  the  East." 

The  meaning  of  the  third  stanza  will  be  apparent  when  it  is  remembered 
that  ' '  French  Rudel  "  was  a  troubadour  of  the  12th  century — the  days  of 
the  Crusades,  and  of  the  romance  of  chivalry,  In  those  days  the  best  way 
to  communicate  with  the  East  would  be  through  some  pilgrim  passing 
thither :  and  nothing  would  be  more  natural  than  such  a  reference  to  the 
"  device"  which  he  had  patiently,  and  in  spite  of  difficulty,  worked  so  as  to 
wear  it  as  her  "  favour  :  "  and  once  more,  it  is  eminently  natural  to  represent 
the  troubadour,  not  as  sending  a  written  message,  but  as  finding  a  sym- 
pathetic pilgrim  to  burden  his  memory  with  it — charging  him  to  keep  it  fresh 
by  repetition  till  it  had  been  duly  delivered. 


43 


NEVER   THE   TIME   AND   THE   PLACE. 

Never  the  time  and  the  place 

And  the  loved  one  all  together  ! 
This  path — how  soft  to  pace ! 

This  May — what  magic  weather  ! 
Where  is  the  loved  one's  face  ? 
In  a  dream  that  loved  one's  face  meets  mine, 

But  the  house  is  narrow,  the  place  is  bleak 
Where,  outside,  rain  and  wind  combine 

^^lth  a  furtive  ear,  if  I  strive  to  speak 

With  a  hostile  eye  at  my  flushing  cheek, 
With  a  malice  that  marks  each  word,  each  sign  ! 
O  enemy  sly  and  serpentine 

Uncoil  thee  from  the  waking  man  I 
Do  I  hold  the  Past 
Thus  firm  and  fast 

Yet  doubt  if  the  Future  hold  I  can  ? 

This  path  so  soft  to  pace  shall  lead 

Through  the  magic  of  May  to  herself  indeed  ! 

Or  narrow  if  needs  the  house  must  be. 

Outside  are  the  storms  and  strangers  :  we — 

Oh,  close,  safe,  warm  sleep  I  and  she, 

— I  and  she  ! 

This  poem,  published  in  "Jocoseria"  in  1883,  has  no  connection  with 
"  Rudel,"  published  in  "Bells  and  Pomegranates"  in  1842;  but  it  will 
naturally  follow  it  as  "  another  of  the  same,"  only  with  a  happier  ending  ; 
for  though  we  learn  from  history  that  poor  Rudel  did  one  day  reach  Tripoli, 
it  was  only  to  die  there, — let  us  hope  still  looking  "  to  the  East — the 
East !  " 

We  get  a  glimpse  here  of  the  shifting  moods  of  a  lover's  soul.  First,  there 
are  the  thoughts  connected  with  the  present  experience — time  and  place  all 
that  could  be  desired,  but  the  loved  one,  absent,  (lines  1-5) ;  next,  thoughts 
arising  from  a  dark  dream  or  foreboding  of  the  future  when  he  and  his  loved 
one  shall  meet,  but  under  circumstances  cruelly  unpropitious,  the  house 
narrow,  the  weather  stormy,  unsympathetic  strangers  by  with  furtive  ears 
and  hostile  eyes,  and  even  malice  in  their  hearts  (6-11) ;  and  last,  the  man 
within  him  rises  to  shake  off  the  horrid  serpent-like  dream,  and  look  forward 
with  a  healthy  hope  that  time  and  place  and  all  will  be  well ;  or,  if  the  house 
must  be  narrow,  (compare  the  Latin,  "res  angusta  domi")  it  will  be  a. 
Home,  storms  and  strangers  without,  peace  and  rest  within  ! 


44 


WANTING    IS— WHAT? 

Wanting  is — what  ? 
Summer  redundant, 
Blueness  abundant, 
— Where  is  the  spot  ? 
Beamy  the  world,  yet  a  blank  all  the  same, 
— Framework  which  waits  for  a  picture  to  frame  : 
What  of  the  leafage,  what  of  the  flower  ? 
Roses  embowering  with  nought  they  embower ! 
Come  then,  complete  incompletion,  O  comer. 
Pant  through  the  blueness,  perfect  the  Summer  ! 
Breathe  but  one  breath 
Rose-beauty  above. 
And  all  that  was  death 
Grows  life,  grows  love, 
Grows  love ! 


This  is  still  the  love  of  earth  ;  but  dealt  with  so  grandly,  that  it  is  no 
wonder  that  some  have  understood  it  of  the  higher  love,  and  to  the  question 
of  the  first  line  would  give  the  answer,  "God."  Nor  can  it  be  said  that  the 
thought  is  alien — rather  is  it  close  akin ;  for  is  not  the  earthly  love,  when 
pure  and  true,  an  image  of  the  heavenly  ?  It  would  be  well,  indeed,  if  love 
songs  were  oftener  written  in  such  a  way  as  to  suggest  thoughts  of  the  love 
of  Heaven.  The  Bible  is  especially  fearless  in  its  use  of  the  one  to  illustrate 
the  other.  With  the  higher  thought  in  view,  we  are  reminded  of  the  closing 
lines  of  "  The  Rhyme  of  the  Duchess  May,"  by  Mrs.  Browning— 

"And  I  smiled  to  think  God's  greatness  flowed  around  our  incompleteness- 
Round  our  restlessness.  His  rest." 

Compare  "  By  the  Fireside,"  especially  stanza  39. 


45 

EVELYN    HOPE. 


Beautiful  Evelyn  Hope  is  dead  ! 

Sit  and  watch  by  her  side  an  hour. 
That  is  her  book-shelf,  this  her  bed  ; 

She  plucked  that  piece  of  geranium-flower, 
Beginning  to  die  too,  in  the  glass  ; 

Little  has  yet  been  changed,  I  think  : 
The  shutters  are  shut,  no  light  may  pass 

Save  two  long  rays  through  the  hinge's  chink, 

11. 

Sixteen  years  old  when  she  died  ! 

Perhaps  she  had  scarcely  heard  my  name; 
It  was  not  her  time  to  love ;  beside. 

Her  life  had  many  a  hope  and  aim. 
Duties  enough  and  little  cares, 

And  now  was  quiet,  now  astir, 
Till  God's  hand  beckoned  unawares, — 

And  the  sweet  white  brow  is  all  of  her. 

III. 

Is  it  too  late  then,  Evelyn  Hope  ? 

What,  your  soul  was  pure  and  true. 
The  good  stars  met  in  your  horoscope, 

Made  you  of  spirit,  fire  and  dew — 
And,  just  because  I  was  thrice  as  old, 

And  our  ]\iths  in  tlie  world  diverged  so  wide. 
Each  was  nought  to  each,  must  I  be  told  ? 

We  were  fellow  mortals,  nought  beside  ? 


46 

IV. 

No,  indeed !  for  God  above 

Is  great  to  grant,  as  mighty  to  make. 
And  creates  the  love  to  reward  the  love  : 

I  claim  you  still,  for  my  own  love's  sake ! 
Delayed  it  may  be  for  more  lives  yet. 

Through  worlds  I  shall  traverse,  not  a  few 
Much  is  to  learn,  much  to  forget 

Ere  the  time  be  come  for  taking  you. 


But  the  time  will  come,  at  last  it  will. 

When,  Evelyn  Hope,  what  meant  (I  shall  say) 
In  the  lower  earth,  in  the  years  long  still. 

That  body  and  soul  so  pure  and  gay  ? 
Why  your  hair  was  amber,  I  shall  divine. 

And  your  mouth  of  your  own  geranium's  red— 
And  what  you  would  do  with  me,  in  fme, 

In  the  new  life  come  in  the  old  one's  stead. 

VI. 

I  have  lived  (I  shall  say)  so  much  since  then. 

Given  up  myself  so  many  times, 
Gained  me  the  gains  of  various  men, 

Ransacked  the  ages,  spoiled  the  climes ; 
Yet  one  thing,  one,  in  my  soul's  full  scope, 

Either  I  missed  or  itself  missed  me  : 
And  I  want  and  find  you,  Evelyn  Hope  ! 

What  is  the  issue?  let  us  see ! 


47 

VII. 

I  loved  you,  Evelyn,  all  the  while  ! 

My  heart  seemed  full  as  it  could  hold ; 
There  was  place  and  to  spare  for  the  frank  young  smile 

And  the  red  young  mouth,  and  the  hair's  young  gold. 
So  hush, — I  will  give  you  this  leaf  to  keep  : 

See,  I  shut  it  inside  the  sweet  cold  hand  ! 
There,  that  is  our  secret :  go  to  sleep  ! 

You  will  wake,  and  remember,  and  understand. 

This  poem,  so  exquisite  in  finish,  well-nigh  perfect  in  form,  is  one  of  the 
few  works  of  our  author,   almost  universally  known  and  admired.     It  is 
doubtful,  however,  if  all  its  admirers  look  beneath  the  form  and  finish,  or 
understand  much  more  of  it  than  they  do  of  other  poems,  the  crabbed  style 
of  which  repels  admiration  as  strongly  as  this  attracts  it.     The  tender  pathos 
of  the  "geranium  leaf  in  the  first  and  last  stanzas,  touches  a  chord  in  every 
heart ;  but  the  thought  of  the  piece  is  something  far  deeper  and  stronger 
namely  this,  that  true  love  is  immortal,  and  that,  therefore,  however  much 
It  may  fail  of  its  object  here,  or  even  (if  possible)  in  lives  that  follow  this   it 
cannot  fail  for  ever,  it  must  find  its  object  and  be  satisfied.       It  is  a  poem 
not  of  the  pathos  of  death,  but  of  the  promise  of  Life  ! 


48 

PROSPICE. 

Fear  death  ?— to  feel  the  fog  in  my  throat, 

The  mist  in  my  face, 
When  the  snows  begin,  and  the  blasts  denote 

I  am  nearing  the  place, 
The  power  of  the  night,  the  press  of  the  storm, 

The  post  of  the  foe  ; 
Where  he  stands  the  Arch  Fear  in  a  visible  form. 

Yet  the  strong  man  must  go  : 
For  the  journey  is  done  and  the  summit  attained, 

And  the  barriers  fall. 
Though  a  battle  's  to  fight  ere  the  guerdon  be  gained, 

The  reward  of  it  all. 
I  was  ever  a  fighter,  so— one  fight  more, 

The  best  and  the  last ! 
I  would  hate  that  death  bandaged  my  eyes,  and  forebore, 

And  bade  me  creep  past. 
No  !  let  me  taste  the  whole  of  it,  fare  like  my  peers 

The  heroes  of  old, 
Bear  the  brunt,  in  a  minute  pay  glad  life's  arrears 

Of  pain,  darkness  and  cold. 
For  sudden  the  worst  turns  the  best  to  the  brave, 

The  black  minute  's  at  end. 
And  the  elements'  rage,  the  fiend-voices  that  rave. 

Shall  dwindle,  shall  blend,      . 
Shall  change,  shall  become  first  a  peace  out  of  pain, 

Then  a  light,  then  thy  breast, 
O  thou  soul  of  my  soul !     I  shall  clasp  thee  again, 
And  with  God  be  the  rest ! 


49 


GOOD,    TO    FORGIVE. 


Good,  to  forgive ; 

Best,  to  forget ! 

Living,  we  fret ; 
Dying,  we  live. 
Fretless  and  free, 

Soul,  clap  thy  pinion  ! 

Earth  have  dominion, 
Body,  o'er  thee  ! 


II. 

Wander  at  will, 
Day  after  day, — 
Wander  away. 

Wandering  still — 

Soul  that  canst  soar  ! 
Body  may  slumber 
Body  shall  cumber 

Soul-flight  no  more 


50 


III. 


Waft  of  soul's  wing  ! 

What  lies  above  ? 

Sunshine  and  Love, 
Sky-blue  and  Spring  > 
Body  hides — where  ? 

Ferns  of  all  feather, 

Mosses  and  heather, 
Yours  be  the  care  ! 

This  is  the  proem  to  "  La  Saisiaz,"  one  of  the  most  remarkable  of  the 
poet's  works,  in  which  the  doctrine  of  immortality  is  argued  with  a  pro- 
fundity of  thought  that  has  perhaps  never  been  surpassed,  even  in  language 
freed  from  the  fetters  of  verse.  It  also  appears  as  No.  III.  of  "  Pisgah 
Sights"  in  the  second  English  series  of  selections.  Both  of  these  connec- 
tions suggest  the  key-note. 

Observe  the  progress  in  the  thought.  In  the  first  stanza  the  soul  is 
"  fretless  and  free  "  ;  in  the  second  it  moves  onward  and  upward;  in  the 
third  it  has  reached  the  region  of  "Sunshine  and  Love,  Sky-blue  and 
Spring  !  "  Similarly  as  to  the  body — in  the  first  stanza  there  is  the  apparent 
victory  of  the  grave,  "  dust  to  dilst  "  ;  in  the  next  comes  the  thought  that, 
after  all,  the  body  may  only  be  slumbering  ;  in  the  last,  there  is  the 
beautiful  suggestion  that  it  is  only  hiding  where  it  is  tenderly  cared  for, 
till 

' ' with  the  morn  those  angel  faces  smile 


Which  we  have  loved  long  since,  and  lost  awhile. 


51 


TOUCH    HIM    NE'ER   SO    LIGHTLY. 

'  Touch  him  ne'er  so  lightly,  into  song  he  broke  : 
Soil  so  quick-receptive, — not  one  feather-seed, 
Not  one  flower-dust  fell  but  straight  its  fall  awoke 
Vitalizing  Virtue  :  song  would  song  succeed 
Sudden  as  spontaneous — prove  a  poet-soul ! " 

Indeed  ? 
Rock  's  the  song-soil  rather,  surface  hard  and  bare  : 
Sun  and  dew  their  mildness,  storm  and  frost  their  rage 
Vainly  both  expend, — few  flowers  awaken  there  : 
Quiet  in  its  cleft  broods — what  the  after  age 
Knows  and  names  a  pine,  a  nation's  heritage. 


These  lines  appeared  first  as  the  Epilogue  to  the  second  series  of 
Dramatic  Idyls,  published  in  1880.  In  October  of  the  same  year,  the  poet 
wrote,  in  the  Album  of  a  young  American  lady,  a  sequel  to  them,  which 
appeared  (in  fac-simile)  in  the  Coitury  Magazine  of  November,  1882. 
They  are  given  here,  with  the  kind  consent  of  the  publishers  of  that 
magazine : — 

Thus  I  wrote  in  London,  nmsing  on  my  betters, 
Poets  dead  and  gone  :  and  lo,  the  critics  cried 
"Out  on  such  a  boast  !  " — as  if  I  dreamed  that  fetters 
Binding  Dante,  bind  up— me  !  as  if  true  pride 
Were  not  also  humble  ! 

So  I  smiled  and  sighed 
As  I  ope'd  your  book  in  Venice  this  bright  morning, 
Sweet  new  friend  of  mine  !  and  felt  tho'  clay  or  sand  — 
Whatsoe'er  my  soil  be, — break — for  praise  or  scorning — 
Out  in  grateful  fancies — weeds,  but  weeds  expand 
Almost  into  flowers,  held  by  such  a  kindly  hand  ! 

D    2 


POPULARITY. 


Stand  still,  true  poet  that  you  are  ! 

I  know  you  ;  let  me  try  and  draw  you. 
Some  night  you  '11  fail  us  :  when  afar 

You  rise,  remember  one  man  saw  you, 
Knew  you,  and  named  a  star ! 

II. 

My  star,  God's  glow-worm  !     Why  extend 
That  loving  hand  of  His  which  leads  you. 

Yet  locks  you  safe  from  end  to  end 

Of  this  dark  world,  unless  He  needs  you, 

Just  saves  your  light  to  spend  ? 

III. 

His  clenched  hand  shall  unclose  at  last, 
I  know,  and  let  out  all  the  beauty  : 

My  poet  holds  the  future  fast, 
Accepts  the  coming  ages'  duty, 

Their  present  for  this  past. 

IV. 

That  day,  the  earth's  feast-master's  brow 
Shall  clear,  to  God  the  chalice  raising  ; 
"  Others  give  best  at  first,  but  Thou 
"  Forever  set'st  our  table  praising, 
"  Keep'st  the  good  wine  till  now  !  " 


53 


Meantime,  I  '11  draw  you  as  you  stand, 
With  few  or  none  to  watch  and  wonder 

I  '11  say — a  fisher,  on  the  sand 

By  Tyre  the  old,  with  ocean-plunder, 

A  netful,  brought  to  land. 


VI. 

Who  has  not  heard  how  Tyrian  shells 
Enclosed  the  blue,  that  dye  of  dyes 

Whereof  one  drop  worked  miracles, 
And  coloured  like  Astarte's  eyes 

Raw  silk  the  merchant  sells  ? 


VII. 

And  each  bystander  of  them  all 
Could  criticize,  and  quote  tradition 

How  depths  of  blue  sublimed  some  pall 
— To  get  which,  pricked  a  king's  ambition  ; 

Worth  sceptre,  crown  and  ball. 

VIII. 


Yet  there  's  the  dye,  in  that  rough  mesh. 
The  sea  has  only  just  o'er-whispered  ! 

Live  whelks,  each  lip's  beard  dripping  fresh, 
As  if  they  still  the  water's  lisp  heard 

Through  foam  the  rock-weeds  thresh. 


54 


IX. 


Enough  to  furnish  Solomon 
Such  hangings  for  his  cedar-house, 

That,  when  gold-robed  he  took  the  throne 
In  that  abyss  of  blue,  the  Spouse 

Might  swear  his  presence  shone 


X. 

Most  like  the  centre-spike  of  gold 

Which  burns  deep  in  the  blue-bell's  womb 

What  time,  with  ardours  manifold, 
The  bee  goes  singing  to  her  groom. 

Drunken  and  overbold. 


XL 

Mere  conchs  !  not  fit  for  warp  or  woof  I 
Till  cunning  come  to  pound  and  squeeze 

And  clarify, — refine  to  proof 
The  liquor  filtered  by  degrees, 

While  the  world  stands  aloof. 


XII. 

And  there  's  the  extract,  flasked  and  fine. 

And  priced  and  saleable  at  last ! 
And  Hobbs,  Nobbs,  Stokes  and  Nokes  combine 

To  paint  the  future  from  the  past, 
Put  blue  into  their  line. 


55 


XIII. 


Hobbs  hints  blue, — straight  he  turtle  eats  : 
Nobbs  prints  blue, — claret  crowns  his  cup  : 

Nokes  outdares  Stokes  in  azure  feats, — 
Both  gorge.     Who  fished  the  murex  up  ? 

What  porridge  had  John  Keats  ? 


The  trae  poet  is  he  who  discovers  and  discloses,  for  man's  recognition 
and  enjoyment,  the  hidden  beauties  which  abound  everywhere  in  the  great 
kingdom  of  God.  These  beauties  may  be  unrecognised  at  first,  so  that  the 
poet  is  not  known  as  a  poet,  except  to  such  as  the  speaker  here  is  supposed 
to  be  ("I  know  you  ").  He  recognises  in  him  a  star.  How  is  it,  then,  that 
his  light  is  hidden?  The  hand  of  God,  who  looks  down  on  him  from  far 
above  ("God's  glow-worm")  as  I  look  up  to  him  from  far  below  ("my 
star  "),  has  closed  around  him  to  keep  him  and  his  light  safe  till  the  time 
shall  come  for  discovery  (Stanza  3)  and  for  recognition  (4).  The  drawing, 
or  simile  follows,  of  a  Tyrian  fisherman  (5),  who  brings  from  the  great  sea 
the  common-looking  little  whelk,  from  which,  by  a  secret  process,  is 
obtained  that  wonderful  dye  which  out-dazzles  art,  and  almost  equals 
Nature's  most  exquisite  tints  (6 — 10).  While  the  process  is  going  on,  the 
world  stands  aloof  (11);  but  as  soon  as  the  extract  is  "priced  and  sale- 
able," the  commonest  people  (12)  can  recognise  it  and  make  it  pay  (13) ; 
while  the  man  who  fished  it  up  remains  poor  and  unknown  to  fame. 

The  application  is  made  with  characteristic  brevity,  oddity,  and  antithetic 
power:  Nokes,  Stokes,  &  Co.,  gorging  turtle;  John  Keats  wanting 
porridge  ! 

In  connection  with  "  Popularity"  should  be  studied  "The  Two  Poets  of 
Croisic,"  far  too  long  to  be  inserted  here.  An  interesting  comparison,  also, 
may  be  made  with  a  little  poem  of  Tennyson's  called  "The  Flower," 
begiiming — 

"  Once  in  a  golden  hour 
I  cast  to  earth  a  seed. 
Up  there  came  a  flower. 
The  people  said,  a  weed. " 


56 
THE    GUARDIAN-ANGEL. 

A   PICTURE   AT    FANO. 


Dear  and  great  Angel,  wouldst  thou  only  leave 
That  child,  when  thou  hast  done  with  him,  for  me  I 

Let  me  sit  all  the  day  here,  that  when  eve 
Shall  find  performed  thy  special  ministry, 

And  time  come  for  departure,  thou,  suspending   ■ 

Thy  flight,  may'st  see  another  child  for  tending, 
Another  still,  to  quiet  and  retrieve. 

II. 

Then  I  shall  feel  thee  step  one  step,  no  more, 
From  where  thou  standest  now,  to  where  I  gaze. 

— And  suddenly  my  head  is  covered  o'er 

With  those  wings,  white  above  the  child  who  prays 

Now  on  that  tomb — and  I  shall  feel  thee  guarding 

Me,  out  of  all  the  world  ;  for  me,  discarding 

Yon  heaven  thy  home,  that  waits  and  opes  its  door. 

III. 

I  would  not  look  up  thither  past  thy  head 

Because  the  door  opes,  like  that  child,  I  know, 

For  I  should  have  thy  gracious  face  instead, 

Thou  bird  of  God  !     And  wilt  thou  bend  me  low 

Like  him,  and  lay,  like  his,  my  hands  together, 

And  lift  them  up  to  pray,  and  gently  tether 

Me,  as  thy  lamb  there,  with  thy  garment's  spread  ? 


57 


IV. 


If  this  was  ever  granted,  I  would  rest 

My  head  beneath  thine,  while  thy  healing  hands 
Close-covered  both  my  eyes  beside  thy  breast, 

Pressing  the  brain  which  too  much  thought  expands, 
Back  to  its  proper  size  again,  and  smoothing 
Distortion  down  till  every  nerve  had  soothing, 

And  all  lay  quiet,  happy  and  suppressed. 


How  soon  all  worldly  wrong  would  be  repaired  ! 

I  think  how  I  should  view  the  earth  and  skies 
And  sea,  when  once  again  my  brow  was  bared 

After  thy  healing,  with  such  different  eyes. 
O  world,  as  God  has  made  it !     All  is  beauty  : 
And  knowing  this,  is  love,  and  love  is  duty. 

What  further  may  be  sought  for  or  declared  ? 


VI. 


Guercino  drew  this  angel  I  saw  teach 

(Alfred,  dear  friend  !) — that  little  child  to  pray, 

Holding  the  little  hands  up,  each  to  each 

Pressed  gently, — with  his  own  head  turned  away 

Over  the  earth  where  so  much  lay  before  him 

Of  wDrk  to  do,  though  heaven  was  opening  o'er  him, 
And  he  was  left  at  Fano  by  the  beach. 


58 


VII. 

We  were  at  Fano,  and  three  times  we  went 
To  sit  and  see  him  in  his  chapel  there, 

And  drink  his  beauty  to  our  soul's  content 
— My  angel  with  me  too :  and  since  I  care 

For  dear  Guercino's  fame  (to  which  in  power 

And  glory  comes  this  picture  for  a  dower, 
Fraught  with  a  pathos  so  magnificent), 


VIII. 

And  since  he  did  not  work  thus  earnestly 

At  all  times,  and  has  else  endured  some  wrong — 

I  took  one  thought  his  picture  struck  from  me, 
And  spread  it  out,  translating  it  to  song. 

My  love  is  here.     Where  are  you,  dear  old  friend  ? 

How  rolls  the  Wairoa  at  your  world's  far  end  ? 
This  is  Ancona,  yonder  is  the  sea. 


"The  Guardian  Angel"  is  given  as  a  slight  specimen  of  an  important 
class,  dealing  with  painting  and  painters.  In  the  lovely  poem,  "One 
Word  More,"  Browning  disclaims  all  ability  to  paint ;  but  no  one  could 
have  a  more  exquisite  appreciation  of  the  art. 

Has  the  tender  pathos  of  these  verses  ever  been  surpassed  ?  The  calm 
of  heaven  is  in  this  thought  spread  out —translated  into  song.  Let  it 
be  read  in  connection  with  Spenser's  exquisite  lines,  beginning  "  And  is 
there  care  in  heaven  ?  " 

"Alfred,  dear  "friend,"  is  Mr.  Alfred  Domett,  who  was  then  Prime 
Minister  of  New  Zealand,  at  which  far  end  of  the  world  the  Wairoa  rolls 
to  the  sea. 


59 


DEAF    AND    DUMB. 

A   GROUP    BY    WOOLNER, 

Only  the  prism's  obstruction  shows  aright 
The  secret  of  a  sunbeam,  breaks  its  light 
Into  the  jewelled  bow  from  blankest  white  ; 

So  may  a  glory  from  defect  arise  : 
Only  by  Deafness  may  the  vexed  love  wreak 
Its  insuppressive  sense  on  brow  and  cheek, 
Only  by  Dumbness  adequately  speak 

As  favoured  mouth  could  never,  through  the  eyes. 


This  is  a  "gem  of  purest  ray."  In  order  to  understand  it  fully,  it  is 
necessary  to  icnow  that  the  "  group  by  Woolner  "  is  of  two  deaf  and  dumb 
children— the  one  as  if  speaking,  the  other  in  the  attitude  of  listening. 
The  speech  denied  passage  through  the  lips,,  breaks  out  in  rarer  beauty 
from  the  eyes ;  and  for  the  hearing  denied  entrance  by  the  ears,  there  is, 
instead,  a  subtle  responsiveness  of  brow  and  cheek  to  the  spirit  utterance 
from  the  soul  of  the  other;  so  that  love,  though  "vexed,"  is  not  suppressed. 

The  exquisite  beauty  of  the  illustration  of  "the  prism's  obstruction," 
and  the  tender  pathos  of  the  thought,  will  be  manifest  to  every  reader. 


6o 


ABT    VOGLER. 

(after  he  has  been  extemporizing  upon  the  musical 
instrument  of  his  invention-'^ 

I. 

Would  that  the  structure  brave,  the  manifold  music  I  build, 

Bidding  my  organ  obey,  calling  its  keys  to  their  work, 
Claiming  each  slave   of  the  sound,  at  a  touch,  as    when 
Solomon  willed 
Armies  of  angels  that  soar,  legions  of  demons  that  lurk, 
Man,  brute,  reptile,  fly, — alien  of  end  and  of  aim. 

Adverse,   each    from    the    other   heaven-high,    hell-deep 
removed, — 
Should  rush  into  sight  at  once  as  he  named  the  ineffable 
Name, 
And  pile  him  a  palace  straight,  to  pleasure  the  princess  he 
loved  ! 

II. 

Would  it  might  tarry  like  his,  the  beautiful  building  of  mine, 
This  which  my  keys  in  a  crowd  pressed  and  importuned  to 
raise ! 
Ah,  one  and  all,  how  they  helped,  would  dispart  now  and  now 
combine. 
Zealous  to  hasten  the  work,  heighten  their  master  his 
praise  ! 
And  one  would  bury  his  brow  with  a  blind  plunge  down  to  hell, 

Burrow  awhile  and  build,  broad  on  the  roots  of  things, 

Then  up  again  swim  into  sight,  having  based  me  my  palace  well, 

Founded  it,  fearless  of  flame,  flat  on  the  nether  springs. 


6i 


III. 

And  another  would  mount  and  march,  Hke  the  excellent 
minion  he  was, 
Ay,  another  and  yet  another,  one  crowd  but  with  many  a 
crest, 
Raising  my  rampired  walls  of  gold  as  transparent  as  glass, 

Eager  to  do  and  die,  yield  each  his  place  to  the  rest : 
For  higher  still  and  higher  (as  a  runner  tips  with  fire, 
When  a  great  illumination  surprises  a  festal  night — 
Outlining  round  and  round   Rome's  dome  from  space  to 
spire) 
Up,  the  pinnacled  glory  reached,  and  the  pride  of  my  soul 
was  in  sight 


IV. 

In  sight?     Not  half!  for  it  seemed,  it  was  certain,  to  match 
man's  birth. 
Nature  in  turn  conceived,  obeying  an  impulse  as  I ; 
And  the  emulous  heaven  yearned  down,  made  effort  to  reach 
the  earth. 
As  the  earth  had  done  her  best,  in  my  passion,  to  scale 
the  sky  : 
Novel  splendours  burst  forth,  grew  familiar  and  dwelt  with 
mine, 
Not  a  point  nor  peak  but  found,  but  fixed  its  wandering 
star ; 
Meteor-moons,  balls  of  blaze  :  and  they  did  not  pale  nor  pine. 
For  earth  had  attained  to  heaven,  there  was  no  more  near 
nor  far. 


62 


V. 

Nay  more ;  for  there  wanted  not  who  walked  in  the  glare  and 
glow, 
Presences  plain  in  the  place  ;  or,  fresh  from  the  Protoplast, 
Furnished  for  ages  to  come,  when  a  kindlier  wind  should 
blow, 
Lured  now  to  begin  and  live,  in  a  house  to  their  liking  at  last ; 
Or  else  the  wonderful  Dead  who  have  passed  through  the 
body  and  gone, 
But  were  back  once  more  to  breathe  in  an  old  world  worth 
their  new  : 
What  never  had  been,  was  now ;  what  was,  as  it  shall  be 
anon  ; 
And  what  is, — shall  I  say,  matched  both  ?  for  I  was  made 
perfect  too. 

VI. 

All  through  my  keys  that  gave  their  sounds  to  a  wish  of  my 
soul, 
All  through  my  soul  that  praised  as  its  wish  flowed  visibly 
forth,     V 
All  through  music  and  me  !     For  think,  had  I  painted  the 
whole, 
Why,  there  it  had  stood,  to  see,  nor  the  process  so  wonder- 
worth. 
Had  I  written  the  same,  made  verse — still,  effect  proceeds 
from  cause. 
Ye  know  why  the  forms  are  fair,  ye  hear  how  the  tale  is  told; 
It  is  all  triumphant  art,  but  art  in  obedience  to  laws 

Painter  and  poet  are  proud,  in  the  artist-list  enrolled : — 


63 


VII. 

But  here  is  the  finger  of  God,  a  flash  of  the  will  that  can, 
Existent  behind  all  laws  :  that  made  them,  and,  lo,  they 
are  I 
And  I  know  not  if,  save  in   this,  such  gift  be  allowed  to 
man. 
That  out  of  three  sounds  he  frame,  not  a  fourth  sound,  but 
a  star. 
Consider  it  well :  each  tone  of  our  scale  in  itself  is  nought ; 
It   is   everywhere   in   the    world — loud,   soft,   and   all   is 
said  : 
Give  it  to  me  to  use  1     I  mix  it  with  two  in  my  thought, 
And,  there  !    Ye  have  heard  and  seen  :  consider  and  bow 
the  head  ! 


VIII. 

Well,  it  is  gone  at  last,  the  palace  of  music  I  reared  ; 

Gone  !  and  the  good  tears  start,  the  praises  that  come  too 
slow  ; 
For  one  is  as'sured  at   first,   one   scarce   can   say  that   he 
feared, 
That   he  even  gave  it  a  thought,  the   gone   thing  was 
to  go. 
Never  to  be  again  !     But  many  more  of  the  kind 

As  good,  nay,  better  perchance :    is  this   your  comfort 
to  me? 
To  me,  who  must  be  saved  because  I  cling  with  my  mind 
To  the  same,  same  self,  same  love,  same  God  :  ay,  what 
was,  shall  be. 


64 


IX. 

Therefore   to   whom    turn    I   but   to   Thee,    the    ineffable 
Name  ? 
Builder   and   maker,    thou,    of    houses    not    made   with 
hands ! 
What,   have  fear  of  change   from  thee  who   art   ever  the 
same  ? 
Doubt  that  thy  power  can  fill  the  heart  that  thy  power 
expands  ? 
There  shall  never  be  one  lost  good  !    What  was,  shall  live  as 
before  ; 
The  evil  is  null,  is  nought,  is  silence  implying  sound  ; 
What  was  good,  shall  be  good,  with,  for  evil,  so  much  good 
more  ; 
On  the  earth  the  broken  arcs  ;  in  the  heaven,  a  perfect 
round. 

X. 

All  we  have  willed  or  hoped  or  dreamed  of  good,   shall 
exist ; 
Not  its  semblance,  but  itself;  no  beauty,  nor  good,  nor 
power 
Whose  voice   has   gone   forth,   but   each   survives  for  the 
melodist, 
When  eternity  affirms  the  conception  of  an  hour. 
The  high  that  proved  too  high,  the  heroic  for  earth  too 
hard. 
The  passion  that  left  the  ground  to  lose  itself  in  the  sky. 
Are  music  sent  up  to  God  by  the  lover  and  the  bard  ; 

Enough  that  he  heard  it  once :  we  shall  hear  it  by-and-by. 


65 

XI. 

And  what  is  our  failure  here  but  a  triumph's  evidence 

For   the    fulness  of  the    days  ?     Have   we   withered   or 
agonized  ? 
Why  else  was  the  pause  prolonged  but  that  singing  might 
issue  thence  ? 
Why  rushed  the  discords  in,  but  that  harmony  should  be 
prized  ? 
Sorrow  is  hard  to  bear,  and  doubt  is  slow  to  clear. 

Each  sufferer  says  his  say,  his  scheme  of  the  weal  and 
woe  : 
But  God  has  a  few  of  us  whom  he  whispers  in  the  ear ; 
The  rest  may  reason  and  welcome  ;  't  is  we  musicians 
know. 

XII. 

Well,  it  is  earth  with  me  ;  silence  resumes  her  reign  : 

I  will  be  patient  and  proud,  and  soberly  acquiesce. 
Give  me  the  keys.     I  feel  for  the  common  chord  again, 

Sliding  by  semitones,  till  I  sink  to  the  minor, — yes, 
And  I  blunt  it  into  a  ninth,  and  I  stand  on  alien  ground, 

Surveying  awhile  the  heights  I  rolled  from  into  the  deep 
Which,  hark,  I  have  dared  and  done,  for  my  resting-place  is 
found, 

The  C  major  of  this  life  :  so,  now  I  will  try  to  sleep. 

Having  given  specimen  poems  dealing  with  the  arts  of  poetry,  painting, 
and  sculpture,  we  add  one  on  the  subject  of  music,  which,  though  difficult 
to  understand  fully,  has  beauties  which  are  apparent  even  to  those  who  ci  > 
not  enter  into  its  deepest  thought.  Vogler  is  not  known  as  a  composer  of 
the  first  rank,  having  left  no  works  behind  him  which  entitle  him  to  a  place 
among  the  great  masters  ;  but,  for  this  very  reason,  he  is  better  suited  for 

£ 


66 

the  poet's  purpose,  which  is  to  deal  with  music,  not  as  represented  by  printed 
notes,  but  as  existing  for  the  moment  in  all  its  perfection,  and  at  once 
melting  away  into  silence  and  apparent  nothingness.  It  is  as  extemporizer, 
not  as  author,  he  is  chosen,  and  as  Abb6  [Ge}-.  Abt)  he  appropriately  thinks 
of  those  deep  spiritual  truths  on  which  the  loftier  hopes  of  the  latter  part  of 
the  poem  are  founded. 

The  musician  "has  been  extemporizing,"— pouring  out  his  whole  soul 
through  the  keys  of  his  organ,  and  from  that  state  of  ecstasy  he  suddenly 
awakes  and  cries  out,  "Would  that  the  structure  brave,  the  manifold  music 
I  build  .  .  .  might  tarry!"  It  has  been  no  mere  "volume,"  but  a 
"palace"  of  sound.  As  Solomon  (according  to  the  well-known  legend) 
summoned  all  spirits  from  above  and  from  below,  and  all  creatures  of  the 
earth,  to  build  him  a  palace  at  once,  so  by  a  touch,  "  calling  the  keys  to 
their  work,"  he  has  summoned  demons  of  the  bass,  angels  of  the  treble, 
earth  creatures  of  the  middle  tones,  who,  by  eager  and  tumultuous  and  yet 
harmoniously  united  efforts,  have  caused  " the  pinnacled  glory  "  to  "rush 
into  sight  "  (stanzas  i — 3). 

Into  sight  ?     There  was  far  more  in  it  than  could  be  seen.     As  the  soul 
of  the  musician  ascended  from  earth,  heaven  descended  on  him  ;  its  stars 
crowned  his  work  ;  its  moons,  its  suns  were  close  beside  him— ' '  there  was 
no  more  near  nor  far"  (4).    And  the  boundaries  of  time,  as  well  as  the  limits 
of  space,  were  gone.     The  absolute,  the  perfect  was  reached  ;  and  to  this 
palace  of  perfection  had  flocked  "  presences  plain  in  the  place,"  from  the 
far  Future  and  from  the  mystic  Past.     "There  was  no  more  sea" — no 
more  distance  or  separation— all  one,  together,  perfect  (5).     Reached  how  ? 
Through  music— the  only  one  of  the  arts  that  leads  into  the  region  of  the 
absolute  and  perfect,  its  effects  not  springing  from  causes  the  operation  of 
which  can  be  traced,  and  the  law  of  their  production  defined,  but  respond- 
ing directly  to  the  will,  even  as  creation  responded  to  \htfiat  of  God.     Out 
of  such  simple  elements  can  that  be  evoked,  which  should  lead  those  who 
"  consider  "  these  things  to  "bow  the  head"  (6,  7). 
But  was  it  only  for  a  moment?     Is  it  gone?     Forever?  (8). 
I  turn  to  God,   and  know  it  cannot  be.      Then   follows  that   glorious 
passage,  one  of  the  finest  in  any  language,  every  word  of  which  should  be 
studied,  beginning — "There  shall  never  be  one  lost  good  !  "  on  to  the  end 
of  stanza  11,  which  is  the  true  climax  of  the  poem. 

The  last  stanza  may  be  compared  to  the  closing  one  of  "  Saul."  It  is  the 
return  from  the  empyrean  to  the  plain  of  common  life.  Let  some  musical 
friend  show  how  at  the  cadence  of  a  very  grand  piece  he  would  feel  his  way 


6; 

down  the  chromatic  scale,  and  then  pause  on  that  poignant  discord,  known 
as  "the  minor  ninin,"  effecting,  as  it  were,  a  separation  ("alien  ground") 
from  the  heights  just  descended,  and  giving  thus  the  opportunity  of  looking 
up  once  more  before  a  resting-place  is  found  in  "the  common  chord," — 
"  the  C  major  of  this  life." 

This  is  a  poem  which  should  be  read  over  and  over  till  the  music  of  it  has 
fairly  entered  the  soul. 

It  has  become  common  now  to  speak  slightingly  of  those  representations 
of  heaven  which  make  large  use  of  music  to  give  them  body  in  our  thought, 
as  if  the  idea  intended  to  be  conveyed  were  that  the  joy  of  heaven  was  to 
consist  in  an  endless  idle  singing,  a  concert  without  a  finale  ;  but  this  easy 
criticism  is  surely  too  disregardful  of  the  distinctive  feature  of  music  so 
strikingly  set  forth  in  this  poem— viz.,  that  it  is  the  only  one  of  the  arts 
which  while  strongly  appealing  to  sense,  yet  in  its  essence  belongs  to  the 
realm  of  the  unseen,  so  that  it  is  in  fact  the  only  symbol  within  the  range  of 
man's  experience  which  can  even  suggest  the  absolute,  the  perfect,  the  pure 
heavenly. 

The  following  passage,  from  the  "Memorials  of  Frances  Ridley  Havergal," 
(p.  151)  is  so  strikingly  illustrative  of  "  Abt  Vogler,"  that  we  cannot  forbear 
quoting  it  : — 

"  In  the  train  I  had  one  of  those  curious  musical  visions  which  only  very 
rarely  visit  me.  I  hear  strange  and  very  beautiful  chords,  generally  full, 
slow  and  grand,  succeeding  each  other  in  most  interesting  sequences.  I  do 
not  invent  them,  I  could  not ;  they  pass  before  my  mind,  and  I  only  listen. 
Now  and  then  my  will  seems  aroused  when  I  see  ahead  how  some  fine 
resolution  might  follow,  and  I  seem  to  ii<ill  that  certain  chords  should  come, 
and  then  they  do  come  ;  but  then  my  will  seems  suspended  again,  and  they 
go  on  quite  independently.  It  is  so  interesting,  the  chords  seem  to  fold 
over  each  other,  and  die  away  down  into  music  of  infinite  softness,  and  then 
they  z^7/fold  and  open  out,  as  if  great  curtains  were  being  withdrawn  one 
after  another,  widening  the  view,  till,  with  a  gathering  power  and  intensity 
and  fulness,  it  seems  as  if  the  very  skies  were  being  opened  out  before  one, 
and  a  sort  of  great  blaze  and  glory  of  music,  such  as  my  outward  ears  never 
heard,  gradually  swells  out  in  perfectly  sublime  splendour.  This  time  there 
was  an  added  feature ;  I  seemed  to  hear  depths  and  heights  of  sound 
beyond  the  scale  which  human  ears  can  receive,  keen,  far-up  octaves,  like 
vividly  twinkling  starlight  of  music,  and  mighty  slow  vibrations  of  gigantic 
strings  going  down  into  grand  thunders  of  depths,  octaves  below  anything 
otherwise  appreciable  as  musical  notes.  Then,  all  at  once,  it  seemed  as  if 
my  soul  had  got  a  new  sense,  and  I  could  see  this  inner  music  as  well  as 
hear  it  ;  and  then  it  was  like  gazing  down  into  marvellous  abysses  of  sound, 
and  up  into  dazzling  regions  of  what,  to  the  eye,  would  have  been  light  and 
colour,  but  to  this  new  sense  was  sound. 

E    2 


68 
ONE    WORD     MORE, 

TO    E.    B.    B. 

London,  September,  1855. 

I. 

There  they  are,  my  fifty  men  and  women 
Naming  me  the  fifty  poems  finished  ! 
Take  them,  love,  the  book  and  me  together  : 
Where  the  heart  Hes,  let  the  brain  lie  also. 

II. 

Rafael  made  a  century  of  sonnets, 

Made  and  wrote  them  in  a  certain  volume 

Dinted  with  the  silver-pointed  pencil 

Else  he  only  used  to  draw  Madonnas  : 

These,  the  world  might  view — but  one,  the  volume. 

Who  that  one,  you  ask  ?      Your  heart  instructs  you. 

Did  she  live  and  love  it  all  her  life-time  ? 

Did  she  drop,  his  lady  of  the  sonnets. 

Die  and  let  it  drop  beside  her  pillow 

Where  it  lay  in  place  of  Rafael's  glory, 

Rafael's  cheek  so  duteous  and  so  loving — 

Cheek,  the  world  was  wont  to  hail  a  painter's, 

Rafael's  cheek,  her  love  had  turned  a  poet"s  ? 

III. 

You  and  I  would  rather  read  that  volume, 
(Taken  to  his  beating  bosom  by  it) 
Lean  and  list  the  bosom-beats  of  Rafael, 
Would  we  not  ?  than  wonder  at  Madonnas — 


69 

Her,  San  Sisto  names,  and  Her,  Foligno, 
Her,  that  visits  Florence  in  a  vision. 
Her,  that  's  left  with  liJies  in  the  Louvre — 
Seen  by  us  and  all  the  world  in  circle. 

IV. 
You  and  I  will  never  read  that  volume. 
Guido  Reni,  like  his  own  eye's  apple, 
Guarded  long  the  treasure-book  and  loved  it. 
Guido  Reni  dying,  all  Bologna 

Cried,  and  the  world  cried  too  "  Ours,  the  treasure  !  " 
Suddenly,  as  rare  things  will,  it  vanished. 

V. 
Dante  once  prepared  to  paint  an  angel  : 
Whom  to  please  ?     You  whisper  "  Beatrice." 
While  he  mused  and  traced  it  and  retraced  it, 
(Peradventure  with  a  pen  corroded 
Still  by  drops  of  that  hot  ink  he  dipped  for. 
When,  his  left  hand  i'  the  hair  o'  the  wicked. 
Back  he  held  the  brow  and  pricked  its  stigma, 
Bit  into  the  live  man's  flesh  for  parchment, 
Loosed  him,  laughed  to  see  the  writing  rankle. 
Let  the  wretch  go  festering  through  Florence) — 
Dante,  who  loved  well  because  he  hated, 
Hated  wickedness  that  hinders  loving, 
Dante  standing,  studying  his  angel, — 
In  there  broke  the  folk  of  his  Liferno. 
Says  he — "  Certain  people  of  importance  " 
(Such  he  gave  his  daily  dreadful  line  to) 
"  Entered  and  would  seize,  forsooth,  the  poet.'' 
Says  the  poet—"  Then  I  stopped  my  painting." 


^o 


VI. 


You  and  I  would  rather  see  that  angel, 
Painted  by  the  tenderness  of  Dante, 
Would  we  not  ? — than  read  a  fresh  Inferno. 


VII. 

You  and  I  will  never  see  that  picture. 
While  he  mused  on  love  and  Beatrice, 
While  he  softened  o'er  his  outlined  angel, 
In  they  broke,  those  "  people  of  importance  :  " 
We  and  Bice  bear  the  loss  for  ever. 


VIII. 

What  of  Rafael's  sonnets,  Dante's  picture  ? 

This  :  no  artist  lives  and  loves,  that  longs  not 

Once,  and  only  once,  and  for  one  only, 

(Ah,  the  prize  !)  to  find  his  love  a  language 

Fit  and  fair  and  simple  and  sufficient — 

Using  nature  that  's  an  art  to  others. 

Not,  this  one  time,  art  that  's  turned  his  nature. 

Ay,  of  all  the  artists  living,  loving, 

None  but  would  forego  his  proper  dowry, — 

Does  he  paint  ?  he  fain  would  write  a  poem, — 

Does  he  write  ?  he  fain  would  paint  a  picture. 

Put  to  proof  art  alien  to  the  artist's, 

Once,  and  only  once,  and  for  one  only. 

So  to  be  the  man  and  leave  the  artist, 

Gain  the  man's  joy,  miss  the  artist's  sorrow. 


71 


IX. 

Wherefore?  Heaven's  gift  takes  earth's  abatement . 

He  who  smites  the  rock  and  spreads  the  water, 

Bidding  drink  and  Hve  a  crowd  beneath  him, 

Even  he,  the  minute  makes  immortal, 

Proves,  perchance,  but  mortal  in  the  minute. 

Desecrates,  belike,  the  deed  in  doing. 

While  he  smites,  how  can  he  but  remember, 

So  he  smote  before,  in  such  a  peril, 

When  they  stood  and  mocked — "  Shall  smiting  help  us  ?  " 

When  they  drank  and  sneered — "  A  stroke  is  easy  !  " 

When  they  wiped  their  mouths  and  went  their  journey. 

Throwing  him  for  thanks — "  But  drought  was  pleasant." 

Thus  old  memories  mar  the  actual  triumph  ; 

Thus  the  doing  savours  of  disrelish  ; 

Thus  achievement  lacks  a  gracious  somewhat ; 

O'er-importuned  brows  becloud  the  mandate. 

Carelessness  or  consciousness — the  gesture. 

For  he  bears  an  ancient  wrong  about  him, 

Sees  and  knows  again  those  phalanxed  faces. 

Hears,  yet  one  time  more,  the  'customed  prelude — 

"  How  should'st  thou,  of  all  men,  smite,  and  save  us  ?  " 

Guesses  what  is  like  to  prove  the  sequel — 

"  Egypt's  fiesh-pots — nay,  the  drought  was  better." 


Oh,  the  crowd  must  have  emphatic  warrant ! 
Theirs,  the  Sinai-forehead's  cloven  brilliance, 
Right-arm's  rod-sweep,  tongue's  imperial  fiat. 
Never  dares  the  man  put  off  the  prophet. 


72 


XI, 


Did  he  love  one  face  from  out  the  thousands, 
(Were  she  Jethro's  daughter,  white  and  wifely, 
Were  she  but  the  Ethiopian  bond-slave,) 
He  would  envy  yon  dumb  patient  camel, 
Keeping  a  reserve  of  scanty  water 
Meant  to  save  his  own  life  in  the  desert  ; 
Ready  in  the  desert  to  deliver 
(Kneeling  down  to  let  his  breast  be  opened) 
Hoard  and  life  together  for  his  mistress. 

XII. 

I  shall  never,  in  the  years  remaining, 

Paint  you  pictures,  no,  nor  carve  you  statues, 

Make  you  music  that  should  all-express  me ; 

So  it  seems  :  I  stand  on  my  attainment. 

This  of  verse  alone,  one  life  allows  me  ; 

Verse  and  nothing  else  have  I  to  give  you. 

Other  heights  in  other  lives,  God  willing  : 

All  the  gifts  from  all  the  heights,  your  own,  love  ! 

XIII. 

Yet  a  semblance  of  resource  avails  us — 
Shade  so  finely  touched,  love's  sense  must  seize  it. 
Take  these  lines,  look  lovingly  and  nearly. 
Lines  I  write  the  first  time  and  the  last  time. 
He  who  works  in  fresco,  steals  a  hair-brush. 
Curbs  tlie  liberal  hand,  subservient  proudly, 


71 

Cramps  his  spirit,  crowds  its  all  in  little, 

Makes  a  strange  art  of  an  art  familiar, 

Fills  his  lady's  missal-marge  with  flowerets. 

He  who  blows  through  bronze,  may  breathe  through  silver^ 

Fitly  serenade  a  slumbrous  princess. 

He  who  writes,  may  write  for  once  as  I  do. 

XIV. 

Love,  you  saw  me  gather  men  and  women, 
Live  or  dead  or  fashioned  by  my  fancy, 
Enter  each  and  all,  and  use  their  service, 
Speak  from  every  mouth, — the  speech,  a  poem. 
Hardly  shall  I  tell  my  joys  and  sorrows, 
Hopes  and  fears,  belief  and  disbelieving  : 
I  am  mine  and  yours — the  rest  be  all  men's, 
Karshish,  Cleon,  Norbert  and  the  fifty. 
Let  me  speak  this  once  in  my  true  person, 
Not  as  Lippo,  Roland  or  Andrea, 
Though  the  fruit  of  speech  be  just  this  sentence — 
Pray  you,  look  on  these  my  men  and  women. 
Take  and  keep  my  fifty  poems  finished  ; 
Where  my  heart  lies,  let  my  brain  lie  also  ! 
Poor  the  speech  ;  be  how  I  speak,  for  all  things. 

XV. 

Not  but  that  you  know  me  !     Lo,  the  moon's  self! 

Here  in  London,  yonder  late  in  Florence, 

Still  we  find  her  face,  the  thrice-transfigured. 

Curving  on  a  sky  imbrued  with  colour. 

Drifted  over  Fiesole  by  twilight, 

Came  she,  our  new  crescent  of  a  hairs-breadth. 


74 

Full  she  flared  it,  lamping  Samminiato, 
Rounder  'twixt  the  cypresses  and  rounder, 
Perfect  till  the  nightingales  applauded. 
Now,  a  piece  of  her  old  self,  impoverished. 
Hard  to  greet,  she  traverses  the  houseroofs, 
Hurries  with  unhandsome  thrift  of  silver, 
Goes  dispiritedly,  glad  to  finish. 

XVI. 

What,  there's  nothing  in  the  moon  note-worthy  ? 

Nay  :  for  if  that  moon  could  love  a  mortal, 

Use,  to  charm  him  (so  to  fit  a  fancy) 

All  her  magic  ('t  is  the  old  sweet  mythos) 

She  would  turn  a  new  side  to  her  mortal, 

Side  unseen  of  herdsman,  huntsman,  steersman — 

Blank  to  Zoroaster  on  his  terrace, 

Blind  to  Galileo  on  his  turret. 

Dumb  to  Homer,  dumb  to  Keats^him,  even ! 

Think,  the  wonder  of  the  moon-struck  mortal — 

When  she  turns  round,  comes  again  in  heaven. 

Opens  out  anew  for  worse  or  better  ! 

Proves  she  like  some  portent  of  an  iceberg 

Swimming  full  upon  the  ship  it  founders, 

Hungry  with  huge  teeth  of  splintered  crystals  ? 

Proves  "she  as  the  paved  work  of  a  sapphire 

Seen  by  Moses  when  he  climbed  the  mountain  ? 

Moses,  Aaron,  Nadab  and  Abihu 

Climbed  and  saw  the  very  God,  the  Highest, 

Stand  upon  the  paved  work  of  a  sapphire. 

Like  the  bodied  heaven  in  his  clearness 

Shone  the  stone,  the  sapphire  of  that  paved  work, 

When  they  ate  and  drank  and  saw  God  also  ! 


75 


XVII. 

What  were  seen  ?     None  knows,  none  ever  shall  know 

Only  this  is  sure — the  sight  were  other, 

Not  the  moon's  same  side,  born  late  in  Florence, 

Dying  now  impoverished  here  in  London. 

God  be  thanked,  the  meanest  of  his  creatures 

Boasts  two  soul-sides,  one  to  face  the  world  with. 

One  to  show  a  woman  when  he  loves  her  ! 

XVIII. 

This  I  say  of  me,  but  think  of  you,  Love ! 

This  to  you — yourself  my  moon  of  poets  ! 

Ah,  but  that 's  the  world's  side,  there  's  the  wonder. 

Thus  they  see  you,  praise  you,  think  they  know  you  ! 

There,  in  turn  I  stand  with  them-  and  praise  you — ■ 

Out  of  my  own  self,  I  dare  to  phrase  it. 

But  the  best  is  when  I  glide  from  out  them. 

Cross  a  step  or  two  of  dubious  twilight, 

Come  out  on  the  other  side,  the  novel 

Silent  silver  lights  and  darks  undreamed  of, 

Where  I  hush  and  bless  myself  with  silence. 

XIX. 

Oh,  their  Rafael  of  the  dear  Madonnas, 
Oh,  their  Dante  of  the  dread  Inferno, 
Wrote  one  song — and  in  my  brain  I  sing  it. 
Drew  one  angel — borne,  see,  on  my  bosom  ! 

"Men  and  Women,"  a  collection  of  fifty  poems,  first  published  in  1855, 
is  probably  the  best  known  of  our  author's  numerous  volumes.  Some  of 
the  very  finest  of  his  work  is  in  it.     To  this  collection   "  One  Word  More" 


76 

is  an  appendix,  in  the  form  of  a  dedication  of  the  fifty  poems  to  his  wife, 
Elizabeth  Barrett  B.  owning.  As  we  learn  from  stanza  13,  this  work  differs 
from  all  others  in  having  been  dashed  off,  the  first  time  of  writing  being 
also  the  last  time  ;  and  yet  (snch  is  the  inspiration  of  love)  it  stands  with 
the  very  highest  of  his  works.  It  needs  careful  reading,  but  presents  no 
such  difficulties  as  "  Abt  Vogler." 

Rafael,  painter  for  the  world,  becomes  for  once  a  poet  for  his  dearest. 
If  only  these  wonderful  sonnets  could  be  found,  how  we  should  prize  them  ; 
but  the  volume  is  hopelessly  lost  (stanzas  2 — 4). 

Dante,  poet  for  the  world,  prepares  for  once  to  paint  an  angel  for  his 
dearest.  But,  alas  I  he  is  hindered  by  the  breaking  in  of  some  "people  of 
importance  "  of  the  city,  the  sort  of  people  who  served  as  character  models 
for  "  the  folk  of  his  Inferno  "  (5 — 7). 

There  would  evidently  be  less  of  art  and  more  of  nature  in  such  an  out- 
pouring of  soul ;  and,  therefore,  the  true  artist  would  long  to  do  it  "  once, 
and  only  once,  and  for  one  only."  "  The  man's  joy"  would  be  found  in 
the  mere  utterance  of  his  soul  to  his  dearest,  without  any  thought  of  art, 
which,  to  the  true  artist,  lifts  so  high  an  ideal  that  his  shortcoming  is 
always  a  "  sorrow  "  (8). 

So  is  it  with  the  prophet,  the  exercise  of  whose  high  calling  can  never  be 
dissociated  from  its  burdens  and  cares  (9).  If  he  dared,  which  he  may  not 
(10),  how  gladly  for  the  one  that  he  loved  would  he  "  put  off  the  prophet  " 
and  provide  water,  not  by  the  forth  putting  of  power,  but  simply  as  the 
man,  through  the  self-denial  of  love  (11). 

Browning  himself  has  only  the  one  art,  so  cannot  leave  his  poetry  to 
paint,  or  carve,  or  "make  music"  {12);  but  as  the  nearest  equivalent 
possible  to  liim  will  write  "once,  and  only  once,  and  for  one  only,"  a 
purely  extemporaneous  production  (13),  which  shall  not,  like  his  other 
works,  be  dramatic  in  principle,  but  spoken  in  his  own  "  true  person"  (14). 

Then  follows  the  wonderful  moon  illustration,  so  marvellously  wrought 
out,  based  upon  the  familiar  astronomical  fact  that,  through  all  her  phases 
and  movements  she  always  presents  exactly  the  same  face  to  the  earth  (15), 
the  other  remaining  entirely  concealed  ("unseen  of  herdsman,  huntsman, 
steersman,"  &c. ),  and  therefore  available  as  a  new  revelation  (who  knows  of 
what  grandeur?)  for  the  loved  and  specially-favoured  mortal  (16). 

The  application  of  the  illustration  in  stanzas  17  and  18  is  exquisitely 
beautiful,  as  is  the  gem-like  quatrain  with  which  the  poem  closes. 


77 


SAUL. 

[The  three  selections  which  fill  up  the  rest  of  this  little  volume  are  given 
as  specimens  of  the  distinctively  Christian  poems  of  our  author.  The  first 
gives  us  Christ  in  the  Old  Testament ;  the  second,  Christ  in  tlie  New  ;  the 
third,  Christianity  in  its  essential  truth  and  practical  application.  As  only 
a  portion  of  "Saul"  can  be  given,  a  few  words  will  be  necessary  to  prepare 
the  reader  unacquainted  with  the  whole  for  taking  up  the  thread  at  the  14th 
stanza,  from  which,  in  the  selection,  the  poem  is  continued  uninterruptedly 
to  the  end] 

Young  David  is  telling  over  to  himself  {see  "my  voice  to  my  heart,"  in 
stanza  14)  the  story  of  his  mission  to  Saul,  when,  as  an  inspired  poet- 
musician,  he  charmed  the  evil  spirit  away  from  him.  Stanza  16,  consisting 
of  one  line,  is  the  hinge  of  the  entire  poem  ;  for  David  has  just  reached 
the  point  where,  after  several  unsuccessful,  or  very  partially  successful, 
attempts — first,  by  playing  one  and  another  and  another  tune,  which  might 
awaken  some  chord  in  the  apathetic  spirit  of  the  king,  and  then  by  singing, 
accompanied  by  the  harp,  first,  of  the  joy  of  life,  then  of  the  splendid 
results  of  a  royal  life  like  Saul's  in  the  great  future  of  the  world — he  at 
last,  the  truth  coming  upon  him,  strikes  the  high  key  where  full  relief  is 
found.  As  he  approaches  this  crisis  in  the  tale,  he  cannot  go  on  without 
an  earnest  invocation  for  help  to  tell  what  he  had  been  so  wonderfully  led 
to  sing  : — 

XIV. 

And  behold  while  I  sang  .  .  but  O  Thou  who  didst  grant 

me,  that  day, 
And,  before  it,  not  seldom  hast  granted  thy  help  to  essay, 
Carry  on  and  complete  an  adventure, — my  shield  and  my 

sword 
In  that  act  where  my  soul  was  thy  servant,  thy  word  was  my 

word, — 
Still  help  me,  who  then  at  the  summit  of  human  endeavour 
And  scaling  the  highest,  man's  thought  could,  gazed  hopeless 

as  ever 


78 

On  the  new  stretch  of  heaven  above  me — till,  mighty  to  save, 
Just  one  lift  of  thy  hand  cleared  that  distance — God's  throne 

from  man's  grave  ! 
Let  me  tell  out  my  tale  to  its  ending — my  voice  to  my  heart 
Which  scarce  dares  believe  in  what  marvels  last  night  I  took 

part, 
As  this  morning  I  gather  the  fragments,  alone  with  my  sheep ! 
And  fear  lest  the  terrible  glory  evanish  like  sleep, 
For  I  wake  in  the  grey  dewy  covert,  while  Hebron  upheaves 
Dawn  struggling  with  night  on  his  shoulder,   and    Kidron 

retrieves 
Slow  the  damage  of  yesterday's  sunshine. 

XV. 

I  say  then, — my  song 
While  I  sang  thus,  assuring  the  monarch,  and,  ever  more 

strong, 
Made  a  proffer  of  good  to  console  him — he  slowly  resumed 
His  old  motions  and  habitudes  kingly.      The   right   hand 

replumed 
His  black  locks  to  their  wonted  composure,  adjusted   the 

swathes 
Of  his  turban,  and  see — the  huge  sweat  that  his  countenance 

bathes, 
He  wipes  off  with  the  robe ;  and  he  girds  now  his  loins  as  of 

yore, 
And  feels  slow  for  the  armlets  of  price,  with  the  clasp  set 

before. 
He  is  Saul,  ye  remember  in  glory,— ere  error  had  bent 
The  broad  brow  from  the  daily  communion;  and  still,  though 

much  spent 


79 

Be  the  life  and  the  bearing  that  front  you,  the  same,  God  did 

choose, 
To  receive  what  a  man  may  waste,  desecrate,  never  quite 

lose. 
So  sank  he  along  by  the  tent-prop,  still,  stayed  by  the  pile 
Of  his  armour  and  war-cloak  and  garments,  he  leaned  there 

awhile. 
And  sat  out  my  singing, — one  arm  round  the  tent-prop,  to 

raise 
His  bent  head,  and  the  other  hung  slack — till  I  touched  on 

the  praise 
I  foresaw  from  all  men  in  all  time,  to  the  man  patient  there; 
And  thus  ended,  the  harp  falling  forward.      Then  first  I  was 

ware 
That  he  sat,  as  I  say,  with  my  head  just  above  his  vast  knees 
Which  were  thrust  out  on  each  side  around  me,  like  oak 

roots  which  please 
To  encircle  a  lamb  when  it  slumbers.      I  looked  up  to  know 
If  the  best  I  could  do  had  brought  solace  :  he  spoke  not,  but 

slow 
Lifted  up  the  hand  slack  at  his  side,  till  he  laid  it  with  care 
Soft  and  grave,  but  in  mild  settled  will,  on  my  brow  :  thro' 

my  hair 
The  large  fingers  were  pushed,  and  he  bent  back  my  head, 

with  kind  power — 
All  my  face  back,  intent  to  peruse  it,  as  men  do  a  flower. 
Thus  held  he  me  there  with  his  great  eyes  that  scrutinized 

mine — 
And  oh,  all  my  heart  how  it  loved  him  !  but  where  was  the 

sign  ? 
I  yearned—"  Could  I  help  thee,  my  father,  inventing  a  bliss, 


8o 

"  I  would  add,  to  that  life  of  the  past,  both  the  future  and 

this  ; 
"  I  would  give  thee  new  life  altogether,  as  good,  ages  hence, 
"  As  this  moment, — had  love  but  the  warrant,  love's  heart 

to  dispense  ! " 

XVT. 

Then  the  truth  came  upon  me.     No  harp  more — no  song 

more  !  outbroke — 


XVII. 

"  I  have  gone  the  whole  round  of  creation  :  I  saw  and  I 

spoke  ; 
"  I,  a  work  of  God's  hand  for  that  purpose,  received  in  my 

brain 
"  And  pronounced  on  the  rest  of  his  handwork— returned 

him  again 
"  His  creation's  approval  or  censure  :  I  spoke  as  I  saw, 
"  Reported,  as  man  may  of  God's  work — all  "s  love,  yet  all 's 

law. 
"  Now  I  lay  down  the  judgeship  he  lent  me.       Each  faculty 

tasked 
"  To  perceive  him  has  gained  an  abyss,  where  a  dew-drop 

was  asked. 
"  Have  I  knowledge  ?  confounded  it  shrivels  at  Wisdom  laid 

bare. 
"Have  I  forethought?  how  purblind,  how   blank,    to   the 

Infinite  Care  ! 
"  Do  I  task  any  faculty  highest,  to  image  success  ? 
"  I  but  open  my  eyes, — and  perfection,  no  more  and  no  less, 


8i 

"  In  the  kind  I  imagined,  full-fronts  me,  and  God  is  seen  God 
"  In  the  star,  in  the  stone,  in  the  flesh,  in  the  soul  and  the 

clod. 
"  And  thus  looking  within  and  around  me,  I  ever  renew 
"  (With  that  stoop  of  the  soul  \vhich  in  bending  upraises  it 

too) 
"The   submission   of  man's    nothing-perfect   to   God's  all- 
complete, 
"  As  by  each  new  obeisance  in  spirit,  I  climb  to  his  feet. 
"  Yet  with  all  this  abounding  experience,  this  deity  known, 
"  I  shall  dare  to  discover  some  province,  some  gift  of  my 

own. 
"  There  "s  a  faculty  pleasant  to  exercise,  hard  to  hood-wink, 
"  I  am  fain  to  keep  still  in  abeyance,  (I  laugh  as  I  think) 
"  Lest,  insisting  to  claim  and  parade  in  it,  wot  ye,  I  worst 
"  E'en  the  Giver  in  one  gift. — Behold,  I  could  love  if  I  durst! 
"  But  I  sink  the  pretension  as  fearing  a  man  may  o'ertake 
"  God's  own  speed  in  the  one  way  of  love  :  I  abstain  for 

love's  sake. 
— "  ^^'hat,  my  soul  ?  see  thus  far  and  no  farther  ?  when  doors 

great  and  small, 
"  Nine-and-ninety  flew  ope  at  our  touch,  should  the  hundredth 

appal  ? 
"  In  the  least  things  have  faith,  yet  distrust  in  the  greatest  of 

all? 
"Do  I  find  love  so  full  in  my  nature,  God's  ultimate  gift, 
"  That  I  doubt  his  own  love  can  compete  with  it?     Here,  the 

parts  shift  ? 
'  Here,   the   creature  surpass    the   Creator, — the  end  what 

began  ? 
"  Would  I  fain  in  my  impotent  yearning  do  all  for  this  man, 

F 


82 

"  And  dare  doubt  he  alone  shall  not  help  him,  who  yet  alone 

can  ? 
"  Would  it  ever  have  entered  my  mind,  the  bare  will,  much 

less  power, 
"To  bestow  on  this  Saul  what  I  sang  of,  the  marvellous 

dower 
"Of  the  life  he  was  gifted  and  filled  with?  to  make  such  a 

soul, 
"  Such  a  body,  and  then  such  an  earth  for  insphering  the 

whole  ? 
"  And  doth  it  not  enter  my  mind  (as  my  warm  tears  attest), 
"  These  good  things  being  given,  to  go  on,  and  give  one  more, 

the  best  ? 
"Ay,  to  save  and  redeem  and  restore  him,  maintain  at  the 

height 
"  This    perfection, — succeed,   with  life's    dayspring,   death's 

minute  of  night : 
"  Interpose  at  the  difficult  minute,  snatch  Saul,  the  mistake, 
"Saul,   the  failure,   the  ruin  he  seems  now, — and  bid  him 

awake 
"  From  the  dream,  the  probation,  the  prelude,  to  find  himself 

set 
"Clear  and  safe  in  new  light  and  new  life, — a  new  harmony 

yet 
"  To  be  run  and  continued,  and  ended — who  knows  ? — or 

endure  ! 
"  The  man  taught  enough  by  life's  dream,  of  the  rest  to  make 

sure ; 
"  By  the  pain-throb,  triumphantly  winning  intensified  bliss, 

''  And  the  next  world's  reward  and  repose,  by  the  struggles 
/  in  this. 


85 


XVIII. 

"  I   believe  it !     'T  is  thou,  God,  that  givest,  't  is    I  who 

receive  : 
"  In  the  first  is  the  last,  in  thy  will  is  my  power  to  believe. 
"  All  's  one  gift  :  thou  canst  grant  it,  moreover,  as  prompt  to 

my  prayer, 
"  As  I  breathe  out  this  breath,  as  I  open  these  arms  to  the 

air. 
"  From  thy  will,  stream  the  worlds,  life  and  nature,  thy  dread 

Sabaoth  : 
"  I  will } — the  mere  atoms  despise  me  !     Why  am  I  not  loth 
"  To  look  that,  even  that  in  the  face  too  ?     Why  is  it  I 

dare 
"  Think  but  lightly  of  such  impuissance  ?      What  stops  my 

despair  ? 
"  This  ; — 't  is  not  what  man  Does  which  exalts  him,  but  what 

man  Would  do ! 
"  See  the  King — I  would  help  him,  but  cannot,  the  wishes 

fall  through. 
"  Could  I  wrestle  to  raise  him  from  sorrow,  grow  poor  to 

enrich, 
"To  fill  up  his  life,  starve  my  own  out,  I  would — knowing 

which, 
"  I  know  that  my  service  is  perfect.     Oh,  spciak  through  me 

now ! 
"Would  I  suffer  for  him  that  I  love.?     So  wouldst  thou — so 

wilt  thou  ! 
"So  shall  crown   thee  the  topmost,   ineffablcst,   uttermost 

crown — 
"And  thy  love  fill  infinitude  wholly,  nor  leave  up  nor  down 
"One  spot  for  the  creature  to  stand  in  !     It  is  by  no  breath, 

F  2 


84 

"Turn  of  eye,  wave  of  hand,  that  salvation  joins  issue  with 

death  ! 
"  As  thy  love  is  discovered  almighty,  almighty  be  proved 
"  Thy  power,  that  exists  with  and  for  it,  of  being  beloved  ! 
"  He  who  did  most  shall  bear  most;  the  strongest  shall  stand 

the  most  weak. 
"  'T  is  the  weakness  in  strength  that  I  cry  for  I  my  flesh  that 

I  seek 
"  In  the  Godhead  !  I  seek  and  I  find  it.     O  Saul,  it  shall  be 
"  A  Face  like  my  face  that  receives  thee ;  a  Man  like  to  me, 
"  Thou  shalt  love  and  be  loved  by,  for  ever  :  a  Hand  like  this 

hand 
"  Shall  throw  open  the  gates  of  new  life  to  thee  1     See  the 

Christ  stand !  " 


XIX. 

I  know  not  too  well  how  I  found  my  way  home  in  the  night. 
There  were  witnesses,  cohorts  about  me,  to  left  and  to  right, 
Angels,  powers,  the  unuttered,  unseen,  the  alive,  the  aware  : 
I  repressed,  I  got  through  them  as  hardly,  as  strugglingly 

there, 
As  a  runner  beset  by  the  populace  famished  for  news — 
Life  or  death.     The  whole  earth  was  awakened,  hell  loosed 

with  her  crews ; 
And  the  stars  of  night  beat  with  emotion,  and  tingled  and 

shot 
Out  in  fire  the  strong  pain  of  pent  knowledge  :  but  I  fainted 

not, 
For  the   Hand  still   impelled  me  at  once  and   supported, 

suppressed 


85 

All  the  tumult,  and  quenched  it  with  quiet,  and  holy  behest, 
Till  the  rapture  was  shut  in  itself,  and  the  earth  sank  to  rest. 
Anon  at  the  dawn,  all  that  trouble  had  withered  from  earth — 
Not  so  much,  but  I  saw  it  die  out  in  the  day's  tender  birth  ; 
In  the  gathered  intensity  brought  to  the  grey  of  the  hills  ; 
In  the  shuddering  forests'  held  breath  ;  in  the  sudden  wind- 
thrills  ; 
In  the  startled  wild  beasts  that  bore  off,  each  with  eye  sidling 

still, 
Though  averted  with  wonder  and  dread  ;  in  the  birds  stiff 

and  chill 
That  rose  heavily  as  I  approached  them,  made  stupid  with 

awe  : 
E'en  the  serpent  that  slid  away  silent — he  felt  the  new  law. 
The  same  stared  in  the  white  humid  faces  upturned  by  the 

flowers ; 
The  same  worked  in  the  heart  of  the  cedar  and  moved  the 

vine-bowers  : 
And  the  little  brooks  witnessing  murmured,  persistent  and 

low. 
With  their  obstinate,  all  but  hushed  voices — "  E'en  so,  it  is 

so  1  " 

Stanza  14. — Observe  the  meeting  of  the  human  and  divine  in  the  poet- 
prophet's  inspiration.  As  poet,  his  powers  were  in  their  fullest  exercise, 
and  still  there  was  an  unfathomable  heaven  of  the  unknown  above  him,  till 
"one  lift  of  Thy  hand  cleared  that  distance." 

The  close  of  this  stanza  sets  before  us  the  scene  of  the  writing  of  this 
reminiscence. 

Stanza  15. — The  soothing  influence  of  the  singing  begins  to  appear.  Re 
sure  to  keep  in  mind  the  picture,  so  wonderfully  illustrated,  of  tlie  .attitude 
of  the  two;  and  mark  the  words  of  David,  "All  my  heart  how  it  loved 


S6 


him,"  connecting  them  carefully  with  the  next  stanza  (i6),  "  T//rn  the  truth 
came  upon  me."  It  is  only  to  the  earnestly-loving  heart  that  such  a  revela- 
tion of  God  could  be  given.  "God  is  Love,  and  he  that  loveth  not 
knovveth  not  God."  Observe,  also,  in  this  short  stanza  the  effect  of  the 
intense  earnestness  of  his  soul,  leading  him  to  lay  aside  his  harp  and  cease 
his  singing,  and  simply  break  out  in  impassioned  speech. 

Stanza  17. — Shall  God  be  infinitely  above  his  creature  man,  in  all 
faculties  except  one,  and  that  "  the  greatest  of  all,"  viz.,  Love?  (Note,  in 
passing,  the  exquisite  beauty  of  the  lines:  "With  that  stoop  of  the  soul 
which  in  bending  upraises  it  too,"  and  "As  by  each  new  obeisance  in  spirit, 
I  climb  to  his  feet."  The  passage  immediately  following  this  line  is  of 
course  ironical  at  his  own  expense,  which  is  indicated  by  the  parenthetical 
"I  laugh  as  I  think"  ;  as  if  to  say  "how  utterly  foolish  the  thought  that 
such  a  wide  province,  such  a  grand  gift,  as  Love,  should  be  mine  quite 
apart  from  God,  the  great  Ruler  and  Giver  of  all  ! ") 

Stanza  18. — Impossible!  God  is  the  giver:  all  that  I  have — Love,  as 
well  as  everything  else — is  from  him  ;  I  can  wish,  but  cannot  will  the 
thing  I  would  ;  but  God  can,  therefore  God  will  ;  his  love  cannot  be 
frustrated  as  mine  is  ;  it  must  even  for  such  as  "  Saul,  the  failure,  the  ruin 
he  seems  now,"  find  Salvation  ;  being  infinite  it  must  have  its  will,  and  find 
a  way,  however  hard  it  be  (see  the  striking  line  "  it  is  by  no  breath,"  &c.) ; 
and  there  it  is.'    See  the  Christ  stand  ! 

Remember  carefully  the  position  as  explained  in  the  15th  stanza  as 
you  read  the  magnificent  climax,  beginning — 

"O  Saul,  it  shnll  be 
A  Face  like  my  face  that  receives  thee  ;  " 
observe  also  the  effect  of  the  spondee  with  which  stanza  18  closes,  instead 
of  the  usual  anaprest ;  it  gives  wonderful  dignity  and  strength  to  the 
thought.  The  same  effect  is  produced  several  times  in  the  early  part  of  the 
poem  by  the  same  means,  but  now  here  with  such  power  as  in  this,  the 
grand  climax. 

What  a  contrast  here  to  the  petty  mechanical  notions  of  inspiration 
which  have  so  often  degraded  the  loftiest  subject  of  human  thought  ;  and 
how  marvellously  is  the  presence  and  the  power  of  the  Unseen  on  such  a 
soul  as  David's  imaged  forth  in  the  lines  of  the  closing  stanza,  in  words 
which  seem  almost  to  utter  the  unutterable. 


87 


AN     EPISTLE 

CONTAINING    THE 

STRANGE    MEDICAL    EXPERIENCE   OF    KARSHISH, 

THE   ARAB    PHYSICIAN. 

Karshish,  the  picker-up  of  learning's  crumbs, 
The  not-incurious  in  God's  handiwork 
(This  man's-flesh  he  hath  admirably  made, 
Blown  like  a  bubble,  kneaded  like  a  paste. 
To  coop  up  and  keep  down  on  earth  a  space 
That  puff  of  vapour  from  his  mouth,  man's  soul) 
— To  Abib,  all-sagacious  in  our  art, 
Breeder  in  me  of  what  poor  skill  I  boast. 
Like  me  inquisitive  how  pricks  and  cracks 
Befall  the  flesh  through  too  much  stress  and  strain, 
Whereby  the  wily  vapour  fain  would  slip- 
Back  and  rejoin  its  source  before  the  term, — 
And  aptest  in  contrivance  (under  God) 
To  baffle  it  by  deftly  stopping  such  : — 
The  vagrant  Scholar  to  his  Sage  at  home 
Sends  greeting  (health  and  knowledge,  fame  with  peace) 
Three  samples  of  true  snake-stone — rarer  still. 
One  of  the  other  sort,  the  melon-shaped, 
(But  fitter,  pounded  fine,  for  charms  than  drugs) 
And  writeth  now  the  twenty-second  time. 

My  journeyings  were  brought  to  Jericho  : 
Thus  I  resume.     Who  studious  in  our  art 
Shall  count  a  litde  labour  unrepaid  ? 
I  have  shed  sweat  enough,  left  flesh  and  bone 


88 


On  many  a  flinty  furlong  of  this  land. 

Also,  the  country-side  is  all  on  fire 

With  rumours  of  a  marching  hitherward  : 

Some  say  Vespasian  cometh,  some,  his  son. 

A  black  lynx  snarled  and  pricked  a  tufted  ear  : 

Lust  of  my  blood  inflamed  his  yellow  balls  : 

I  cried  and  threw  my  staff  and  he  was  gone. 

Twice  have  the  robbers  stripped  and  beaten  me, 

And  once  a  town  declared  me  for  a  spy ; 

But  at  the  end,  I  reach  Jerusalem, 

Since  this  poor  covert  where  I  pass  the  night, 

This  Bethany,  lies  scarce  the  distance  thence 

A  man  with  plague-sores  at  the  third  degree 

Runs  till  he  drops  down  dead.     Thou  laughest  here  ! 

'Sooth,  it  elates  me,  thus  reposed  and  safe, 

To  void  the  stuffing  of  my  travel-scrip 

And  share  with  thee  whatever  Jewry  yields. 

A  viscid  choler  is  observable 

In  tertians,  I  was  nearly  bold  to  say  ; 

And  falling-sickness  hath  a  happier  cure 

Than  our  school  wots  of:  there  's  a  spider  here 

Weaves  no  web,  watches  on  the  ledge  of  tombs, 

Sprinkled  with  mottles  on  an  ash-grey  back  ; 

Take  five  and  drop  them  .  .  .  but  who  knows  his  mind, 

The  Syrian  run-a-gate  I  trust  this  to? 

His  service  payeth  me  a  sublimate 

Blown  up  his  nose  to  help  the  ailing  eye. 

Best  wait  :  I  reach  Jerusalem  at  morn. 

There  set  in  order  my  experiences, 

Gather  what  most  deserves,  and  give  thee  all — 

Or  I  might  add,  Judaea's  gum-tragacanth 


89 

Scales  off  in  purer  flakes,  shines  clearer-grained, 
Cracks  'twixt  the  pestle  and  the  porphyry, 
In  fine  exceeds  our  produce.     Scalp-disease 
Confounds  me,  crossing  so  with  leprosy  : 
Thou  hadst  admired  one  sort  I  gained  at  Zoar — 
But  zeal  outruns  discretion.     Here  I  end. 

Yet  stay  !  my  Syrian  blinketh  gratefully, 
Protesteth  his  devotion  is  my  price — 
Suppose  I  write  what  harms  not,  though  he  steal  ? 
I  half  resolve  to  tell  thee,  yet  I  blush, 
What  set  me  off  a-writing  first  of  all. 
An  itch  I  had,  a  sting  to  write,  a  tang  ! 
For,  be  it  this  town's  barrenness — or  else 
The  Man  had  something  in  the  look  of  him — 
His  case  has  struck  me  far  more  than  't  is  worth. 
So,  pardon  if — (lest  presently  I  lose, 
In  the  great  press  of  novelty  at  hand, 
The  care  and  pains  this  somehow  stole  from  me) 
I  bid  thee  take  the  thing  while  fresh  in  mind, 
Almost  in  sight— for,  wilt  thou  have  the  truth  ? 
The  very  man  is  gone  from  me  but  now. 
Whose  ailment  is  the  subject  of  discourse. 
Thus  then,  and  let  thy  better  wit  help  all  ! 

'T  is  but  a  case  of  mania  :  subinduced 
By  epilepsy,  at  the  turning-point 
Of  trance  prolonged  unduly  some  three  days 
When,  by  the  exhibition  of  some  drug 
Or  spell,  exorcisation,  stroke  of  art 
Unknown  to  me  and  which  't  were  well  to  know, 


90 

The  evil  thing,  out-breaking,  all  at  once. 

Left  the  man  whole  and  sound  of  body  indeed, — 

But,  flinging  (so  to  speak)  life's  gates  too  wide, 

Making  a  clear  house  of  it  too  suddenly, 

The  first  conceit  that  entered  might  inscribe 

Whatever  it  was  minded  on  the  wall 

So  plainly  at  that  vantage,  as  it  were, 

(First  come,  first  served)  that  nothing  subsequent 

Attaineth  to  erase  those  fancy-scrawls 

The  just-returned  and  new-established  soul 

Hath  gotten  now  so  thoroughly  by  heart 

That  henceforth  she  will  read  or  these  or  none. 

And  first — the  moan's  own  firm  conviction  rests 

That  he  was  dead  (in  fact  they  buried  him) 

— That  he  was  dead  and  then  restored  to  life 

By  a  Nazarene  physician  of  his  tribe  : 

— 'Sayeth,  the  same  bade  "  Rise,"  and  he  did  rise. 

"  Such  cases  are  diurnal,"  thou  wilt  cry. 

Not  so  this  figment ! — not,  that  such  a  fume, 

Instead  of  giving  way  to  time  and  health, 

Should  eat  itself  into  the  hfe  of  life, 

As  saffron  tingeth  flesh,  blood,  bones,  and  all ! 

For  see,  how  he  takes  up  the  after-life. 

The  man — it  is  one  Lazarus  a  Jew, 

Sanguine,  proportioned,  fifty  years"  of  age, 

The  body's  habit  wholly  laudable. 

As  much,  indeed,  beyond  the  common  health 

As  he  were  made  and  put  aside  to  show. 

Think,  could  we  penetrate  by  any  drug 

And  bathe  the  wearied  soul  and  worried  flesh. 

And  bring  it  clear  and  fair,  by  three  days'  sleep  1 


91 

Whence  has  the  man  the  bahii  that  brightens  all  ? 
This  grown  man  eyes  the  world  now  like  a  child. 
Some  elders  of  his  tribe,  I  should  premise, 
Led  in  their  friend,  obedient  as  a  sheep, 
To  bear  my  inquisition.     While  they  spoke. 
Now  sharpl}',  now  with  sorrow, — told  the  case, — 
He  listened  not  except  I  spoke  to  him, 
But  folded  his  two  hands  and  let  them  talk, 
Watching  the  flies  that  buzzed  :  and  yet  no  fool. 
And  that  's  a  sample  how  his  years  must  go. 
Look  if  a  beggar,  in  fixed  middle-life, 
Should  find  a  treasure, — can  he  use  the  same 
With  straitened  habitude  and  tastes  starved  small, 
And  take  at  once  to  his  impoverished  brain 
The  sudden  element  that  changes  things, 
That  sets  the  undreamed-of  rapture  at  his  hand, 
And  puts  the  cheap  old  joy  in  the  scorned  dust  ? 
Is  he  not  such  an  one  as  moves  to  mirth — 
Warily  parsimonious,  when  no  need, 
Wasteful  as  drunkenness  at  undue  times  ? 
All  prudent  counsel  as  to  what  befits 
The  golden  mean,  is  lost  on  such  an  one  :  * 
The  man's  fantastic  will  is  the  man's  law. 
So  here — we  call  the  treasure  knowledge,  say, 
Increased  beyond  the  fleshly  faculty — 
Heaven  opened  to  a  soul  while  yet  on  earth, 
Earth  forced  on  a  soul's  use  while  seeing  heaven : 
The  man  is  witless  of  the  size,  the  sum. 
The  value  in  proportion  of  all  things, 
Or  whether  it  be  litUe  or  be  much. 
Discourse  to  him  of  prodigious  armaments 


92 

Assembled  to  besiege  his  city  now, 

And  of  the  passing  of  a  mule  with  gourds — 

'T  is  one  !     Then  take  it  on  the  other  side, 

Speak  of  some  trifling  fact, — he  will  gaze  rapt 

With  stupor  at  its  very  littleness, 

(Far  as  I  see)  as  if  in  that  indeed 

He  caught  prodigious  import,  whole  results ; 

And  so  will  turn  to  us  the  bystanders 

In  ever  the  same  stupor  (note  this  point) 

That  we  too  see  not  with  his  opened  eyes. 

Wonder  and  doubt  come  wrongly  into  play, 

Preposterously,  at  cross  purposes. 

Should  his  child  sicken  unto  death, — why,  look 

For  scarce  abatement  of  his  cheerfulness, 

Or  pretermission  of  the  daily  craft ! 

While  a  word,  gesture,  glance  from  that  same  child 

At  play  or  in  the  school  or  laid  asleep. 

Will  startle  him  to  an  agony  of  fear, 

Exasperation,  just  as  like.     Demand 

The  reason  why — "'t  is  but  a  word,"  object — 

"A  gesture  " — he  regards  thee  as  our  lord 

Who  lived  there  in  the  pyramid  alone, 

Looked  at  us  (dost  thou  mind  ?)  when,  being  young, 

W^e  both  would  unadvisedly  recite 

Some  charm's  beginning,  from  that  l)ook  of  his. 

Able  to  bid  the  sun  throb  wide  and  burst 

All  into  stars,  as  suns  grown  old  are  wont. 

Thou  and  the  child  have  each  a  veil  alike 

Thrown  o'er  your  heads,  from  under  which  ye  both 

Stretch  your  blind  hands  and  trifle  with  a  match 

Over  a  mine  of  Greek  fire,  did  ve  know  ! 


93 

He  holds  on  firmly  to  some  thread  of  life — 
(It  is  the  life  to  lead  perforcedly) 
Which  runs  across  some  vast  distracting  orb 
Of  glory  on_  either  side  that  meagre  thread, 
Which,  conscious  of,  he  must  not  enter  yet — 
The  spiritual  life  around  the  earthly  life  : 
_  The  law  of  that  is  known  to  him  as  this. 
His  heart  and  brain  move  there,  his  feet  stay  here. 
So  is  the  man  perplext  with  impulses 
Sudden  to  start  off  crosswise,  not  straight  on, 
Proclaiming  what  is  right  and  wrong  across, 
And  not  along,  this  black  thread  through  the  blaze- 
"  It  should  be  "  baulked  by  "  here  it  cannot  be." 
And  oft  the  man's  soul  springs  into  his  face 
As  if  he  saw  again  and  heard  again 
His  sage  that  bade  him  "  Rise,"  and  he  did  rise. 
Something,  a  word,  a  tick  o'  the  blood  within 
Admonishes  :  then  back  he  sinks  at  once 
To  ashes,  who  was  very  fire  before. 
In  sedulous  recurrence  to  his  trade 
Whereby  he  earneth  him  the  daily  bread ; 
And  studiously  the  humbler  for  that  pride, 
Professedly  the  faultier  that  he  knows 
God's  secret,  while  he  holds  the  thread  of  life. 
Indeed  the  especial  marking  of  the  man 
Is  prone  submission  to  the  heavenly  will — 
Seeing  it,  what  it  is,  and  why  it  is. 
'Sayeth,  he  will  wai^paticnt  to  the  last 
For  that  same  death  which  must  restore  his  being 
To  equilibrium,  body  loosening  soul 
Divorced  even  now  by  premature  full  growth  : 


94 

He  will  live,  nay,  it  pleaseth  him  to  live 

So  long  as  God  please,  and  just  how  God  please. 

He  even  seeketh  not  to  please  God  more 

(Which  meaneth,  otherwise)  than  as  God  please. 

Hence,  I  perceive  not  he  affects  to  preach 

The  doctrine  of  his  sect  whate'er  it  be, 

Make  proselytes  as  madmen  thirst  to  do  : 

How  can  he  give  his  neighbour  the  real  ground, 

His  own  conviction  ?     Ardent  as  he  is— 

Call  his  great  truth  a  lie,  why,  still  the  old 

"  Be  it  as  God  please  "  reassureth  him. 

I  probed  the  sore  as  thy  disciple  should  : 

"  How,  beast,"  said  I,  "  this  stolid  carelessness 

"  Sufficeth  thee,  when  Rome  is  on  her  march 

"  To  stamp  out  like  a  little  spark  thy  town, 

"  Thy  tribe,  thy  crazy  tale  and  thee  at  once  ?  " 

He  merely  looked  with  his  large  eyes  on  me. 

The  man  is  apathetic,  you  deduce  ? 

Contrariwise,  he  loves  both  old  and  young, 

Able  and  weak,  affects  the  very  brutes 

And  birds — how  say  I  ?  flowers  of  the  field — 

As  a  wise  workman  recognises  tools 

In  a  master's  workshop,  loving  what  they  make. 

Thus  is  the  man  as  harmless  as  a  lamb  : 

Only  impatient,  let  him  do  his  best, 

At  ignorance  and  carelessness  and  sin —  . 

An  indignation  which  is  promptly  curbed  : 

As  when  in  certain  travel  I  have  feigned 

To  be  an  ignoramus  in  our  art 

According  to  some  preconceived  design 

And  happed  to  hear  the  land's  practitioners 


95 

Steeped  in  conceit  sublimed  by  ignorance, 

Prattle  fantastically  on  disease, 

Its  cause  and  cure — and  I  must  hold  my  peace ! 

Thou  writ  object-^Why  have  I  not  ere  this 
Sought  out  the  sage  himself,  the  Nazarene 
Who  wTOught  this  cure,  inquiring  at  the  source, 
Conferring  with  the  frankness  that  befits  ? 
Alas  I  it  grieveth  me,  the  learned  leech 
Perished  in  a  tumult  many  years  ago, 
Accused, — our  learning's  fate,^ — of  wizardry, 
Rebellion,  to  the  setting  up  a  rule 
And  creed  prodigious  as  described  to  me. 
His  death,  which  happened  when  the  earthquake  fell 
(Prefiguring,  as  soon  appeared,  the  loss 
To  occult  learning  in  our  lord  the  sage 
Who  lived  there  in  the  pyramid  alone) 
Was  wrought  by  the  mad  people — that's  their  wont ! 
On  vain  recourse,  as  I  conjecture  it. 
To  his  tried  virtue,  for  miraculous  help — 
How  could  he  stop  the  earthquake?     That's  their  way  I 
The  other  imputations  must  be  lies  : 
But  take  one,  though  I  loathe  to  give  it  thee, 
In  mere  respect  for  any  good  man's  fame. 
(And  after  all,  our  patient  Lazarus 
Is  stark  mad  ;  should  we  count  on  what  he  says  ? 
Perhaps  not  :  though  in  writing  to  a  leech 
'T  is  well  to  keep  back  nothing  of  a  case.) 
This  man  so  cured  regards  the  curer,  then. 
As — God  forgive  me  !  who  but  God  himself, 
Creator  and  sustainer  of  the  world. 


96 

That  came  and  dwelt  in  flesh  on  it  awhile. 

— 'Sayeth  that  such  an  one  was  born  and  lived, 

Taught,  healed  the  sick,  broke  bread  at  his  own  house, 

Then  died,  with  Lazarus  by,  for  aught  I  know, 

And  yet  was  .  .  .  what  I  said  nor  choose  repeat, 

And  must  have  so  avouched  himself,  in  fact, 

In  hearing  of  this  very  Lazarus 

Who  saith — but  why  all  this  of  what  he  saith  ? 

Why  write  of  trivial  matters,  things  of  price 

Calling  at  every  moment  for  remark  ? 

I  noticed  on  the  margin  of  a  pool 

Blue-flowering  borage,  the  Aleppo  sort, 

Aboundeth,  very  nitrous.     It  is  strange ! 

Thy  pardon  for  this  long  and  tedious  case. 
Which,  now  that  I  review  it,  needs  must  seem 
Unduly  dwelt  on,  prolixly  set  forth  ! 
Nor  I  myself  discern  in  what  is  writ 
Good  cause  for  the  peculiar  interest 
And  awe  indeed  this  man  has  touched  me  with. 
Perhaps  the  journey's  end,  the  weariness 
Had  wrought  upon  me  first.     I  met  him  thus  : 
I  crossed  a  ridge  of  short  sharp  broken  hills 
Like  an  old  lion's  cheek  teeth.     Out  there  came 
A  moon  made  like  a  face  with  certain  spots 
Multiform,  manifold  and  menacing  : 
Then  a  wind  rose  behind  me.     So  we  met 
In  this  old  sleepy  town  at  unawares. 
The  man  and  I.     I  send  thee  what  is  writ. 
Regard  it  as  a  chance,  a  matter  risked 
To  this  ambiguous  Syrian  :  he  may  lose, 


97 

Or  steal,  or  give  it  thee  with  equal  good. 
Jerusalem's  repose  shall  make  amends 
For  time  this  letter  wastes,  thy  time  and  mine ; 
Till  when,  once  more  thy  pardon  and  farewell ! 

The  very  God  !  think,  Abib  ;  dost  thou  think  ? 
So,  the  All-Great  were  the  All-Loving  too — 
So,  through  the  thunder  comes  a  human  voice 
Saying,  "  O  heart  I  made,  a  heart  beats  here  ! 
"  Face,  my  hands  fashioned,  see  it  in  myself! 
"  Thou  hast  no  power  nor  may'st  conceive  of  mine  : 
"  But  love  I  gave  thee,  with  myself  to  love, 
"  And  thou  must  love  me  who  have  died  for  thee  !  " 
The  madman  saith  He  said  so  :  it  is  strange. 

This  most  interesting  and  beautiful  poem  will  afford  a  good  illustration  of 
one  of  the  cases  of  difficulty  referred  to  in  the  Introduction.  The  reader  is 
placed  in  the  position  of  one  who  has  just  found  this  Arabian  epistle,  and 
must  decipher  and  interpret  it  without  any  extraneous  aid. 

First  comes,  according  to  Eastern  custom,  the  name  (line  i),  then  the 
address  (7),  with  the  greeting  (15),  and  mention  of  articles  sent  with  the 
letter — all  in  true  Eastern  style — with  such  adjuncts  as  give  a  general  idea  o- 
the  school  of  physiology  and  medicine  to  which  the  writer  belongs. 

The  twenty-first  letter  had  ended  at  Jericho,  and  here,  accordingly,  the 
twenty-second  begins.  The  date  appears  as  we  read  on,  marked  by  the 
expedition  of  Vespasian  and  his  son  Titus  against  Jerusalem.  When 
Bethany  is  mentioned,  our  interest  is  awakened,  and  we  wonder  what  is 
coming ;  but  to  the  writer  Bethany  has  no  such  associations,  as  is  indicated 
by  the  light  and  jocular  way  in  which  he  marks  its  distance  from  Jerusalem, 
and  carelessly  proceeds  to  record  the  observations  it  is  his  main  business  to 
make  wherever  he  goes. 

Further  on,  however,  we  discover  that  there  is  something  of  importance 
weighing  on  his  mind,  which  makes  him  hesitate  and  debate  as  to  the  trust- 


.      98 

worthiness  of  the  messenger  he  intends  to  employ  ;  while,  at  the  same 
time,  he  is  evidently  ashamed  to  tell  his  master  what  is  troubling  him.  This 
accounts  for  his  abruptly  ending  his  letter  (determining,  for  the  moment,  to 
say  nothing  about  it) ;  then,  unable  to  refrain,  beginning  again,  yet  still 
trying  to  conceal  the  depth  of  his  feeling,  and  to  apologize  for  what  appears 
in  spite  of  himself. 

A  long  account  of  the  case  follows.  By  this  time  the  reader  has  begun 
to  have  a  pretty  good  idea  who  "the  man  "  is  that  "  had  something  in  the 
look  of  him,"  and  knows  that  it  is  a  veritable  case  of  one  raised  from  the 
dead.  But  Karshish  cannot,  of  course,  except  under  strong  compulsion, 
be  expected  to  take  this  view  ;  and,  accordingly,  he  begins  by  looking  at  it 
in  a  strictly  professional  lights" 'Tis  but  a  case  of  mania,"  &c.  He 
naturally  supposes  that  his  master  will  set  it  down  as  an  ordinary  instance 
of  hallucination:  "Such  cases  are  diurnal,  thou  wilt  ciy."  Then  he 
mentions  points  which  strike  him  as  altogether  peculiar,  certain  features  of 
the  "after  life"  which  are  quite  inconsistent  with  the  idea  of  mania. 
Instead  of  being  the  worse  for  his  mania,  this  man  is  immeasurably  the 
better.  Could  Karshish  and  his  master  but  penetrate  the  secret,  what 
physicians  they  would  be  !  The  scene  when  Lazarus  is  brought  in  by  the 
Elders  of  his  tribe — who  regard  him  as  a  madman,  because  he  is  living  a 
life  so  far  above  anything  they  can  understand— is  inimitable. 

In  the  illustration  of  the  beggar  suddenly  become  rich,  Karshish  lets 
out  at  last  that  he  suspects  there  must  be  some  truth  in  the  man's  story. 
His  patient,  he  observes,  now  measures  things  with  no  earthly  measure, 
seeing  often  the  small  in  the  great  and  the  great  in  the  small ;  looking  at 
everything  "with  larger,  other  eyes  thau  ours";  accepting  with  perfect 
equanimity  the  very  greatest  sorrow,  yet  filled  with  alarm  at  the  least 
gesture  or  look  which  gives  token  of  jzV/,  because  to  him  it  was  like 
trifling  with  a  match  over  a  mine  of  Greek  fire  ! 

In  the  next  illustration,  of  the  thread  of  life  across  an  orb  of  glory,  the 
writer  seems  to  get  still  fuller  insight  into  the  reality  of  the  case — the  little 
thread  being,  of  course,  the  poor  life  in  Bethany,  and  the  vast  orb  of  glory, 
the  great  eternity  of  God,  in  which  Lazarus  was  cc  isciously  living.  And 
here,  again,  we  have  the  same  lesson  as  in  "The  Boy  and  the  Angel," 
Though  conscious  of  the  glory  of  the  great  orb,  Lazarus  does  not  despise 
the  little  duties  belonging  to  the  thread  of  his  earthly  life.  He  sedulously 
follows  his  trade  whereby  he  earns  his  daily  bread  ;    indeed,  the  special 


99 

characteristic  of  the  man  is  "prone  submission  to  the  Heavenly  will." 
Mark  the  profound  suggestiveness  of  the  lines — 

"  He  even  seeketh  not  to  please  God  more 
(Which  meaneth,  otherwise)  than  as  God  please." 

He  is  so  calm  as  to  be  provoking.  At  his  inquisitor's  burst  of  indignation, 
he  shows  no  sign  of  anger  or  impatience — "He  merely,  looked  with  his 
large  eyes  on  me."  And  yet  no  apathy  about  him  ;  a  man  full  of  loving 
interest  in  all  things.  (Compare  Coleridge's  well-known  lines:  "He 
prayeth  best  who  loveth  best,"  &c. ) 

The  paragraph  which  follows  introduces  us  to  a  region  familiar  and 
sacred  to  us,  but  foreign  and  inexplicable  to  our  physician,  who  refers  to  it 
from  his  own  point  of  view,  stigmatizing  the  claim  of  "  the  Nazarene  who 
wrought  this  cure"  as  not  only  false,  but  monstrous  ;  and  yet — and  yet — 
and  yet — he  cannot  get  over  it ;  it  haunts  him.  But  still  he  is  ashamed 
to  acknowledge  it,  and  so  turns  abruptly  from  what  he  affects  to  call 
"trivial  matters  "  to  "  things  of  price,"  like  "  blue-flowering  borage"  ! 

Then  he  gives  another  elaborate  apology,  and  tries  to  account  for  the 
hold  the  phenomenon  has  taken  of  him  by  a  reference  to  his  state  of  body 
and  surroundings  when  first  he  met  this  Lazarus  ;  and,  accordingly,  pro- 
fessing to  care  Mttle  whether  the  letter  reaches  or  not,  again  he  closes. 

Yet  still  he  cannot  rest.  The  great  thought  haunts  him.  "The  very 
God!  think,  Abib. "  Then  follows  that  consummate  passage  with  which 
this  magnificent  poem  closes. 

After  this  "Epistle"  should  by  all  means  be  read  "  A  Death  in  the 
Desert,"  too  long  and  too  difficult  to  be  inserted  here.  The  surprise 
awaiting  the  reader  of  the  parchment  "supposed  of  Pamphylax  the 
Antiochene "  will  add  to  the  interest  of  a  poem  so  full  of  beauty  and 
power. 


2  G 


lOO 


CHRISTMAS-EVE    &    EASTER-DAY. 


CHRISTMAS-EVE. 

Between  Christmas-Eve  and  Easter-Morn  lies  the  earth  history  of  the 
Incarnate  Son  of  God.  Into  the  shadows  of  our  world  He  came ;  and, 
after  a  brief  night  amid  its  darkness,  rose  again  into  the  light  of  heaven. 
These  titles  then  may  well  include  the  whole  substance  of  Christianity. 
Christmas  suggests  the  thought  of  heaven  come  down  to  earth  ;  Easter, 
of  earth  raised  up  to  heaven.  "Christmas-Eve  '  leads  naturally  to  the 
contemplation  of  the  Christian  Faith  ;  "  Easter-Day,  'o  ilic  contemplation 
of  the  Christian  Life. 

Each  poem  turns  on  an  impressive  natural  phenomenon  which  suggests 
the  blending  of  heaven  and  earth— the  one,  of  the  night,  a  lunar  rainbow  ; 
the  other,  of  the  dawn,  the  aurora  borealis. 

The  speaker  (who  is  the  same  throughout  the  former  poem)  begins  his 
Christmas-Eve  experiences  with  the  flock  assembling  in  "  Zion  Chapel,"  a 
congregation  of  rude,  unlettered  people,  worshipping  with  heart  and  soul 
indeed,  but  with  little  mind  and  less  taste.  It  is  not  from  choice  that 
he  is  there.  It  is  a  stormy  night  of  wind  and  rain,  from  which  he  has 
taken  shelter  in  the  "  lath  and  plaster  entry  "  of  the  little  meeting  house. 


*  *  *  *  * 

Five  minutes  full,  I  waited  first 

In  the  doorway,  to  escape  the  rain 

That  drove  in  gusts  down  the  common's  centre,. 

At  the  edge  of  which  the  chapel  stands, 

Before  I  plucked  up  heart  to  enter. 

Heaven  knows  how  many  sorts  of  hands 

Reached  past  me,  groping  for  the  latch 

Of  the  inner  door  that  hung  on  catch 

More  obstinate  the  more  they  fumbled, 

Till,  giving  way  at  last  with  a  scold 


lOI 


Of  the  crazy  hinge,  in  squeezed  or  tumbled 

One  sheep  more  to  the  rest  in  fold, 

And  left  me  irresolute,  standing  sentry 

In  the  sheepfold's  lath-and-plaster  entry, 

Four  feet  long  by  two  feet  wide. 

Partitioned  off  from  the  vast  inside — 

I  blocked  up  half  of  it  at  least. 

No  remedy  ;  the  rain  kept  driving. 

They  eyed  me  much  as  some  wild  beast, 

That  congregation,  still  arriving, 

Some  of  them  by  the  main  road,  white 

A  long  way  past  me  into  the  night. 

Skirting  the  common,  then  diverging ; 

Not  a  few  suddenly  emerging 

From  the  common's  self  through  the  paling-gaps, 

— They  house  in  the  gravel-pits  perhaps. 

Where  the  road  stops  short  with  its  safeguard  border 

Of  lamps,  as  tired  of  such  disorder  ; — 

But  the  most  turned  in  yet  more  abruptly 

From  a  certain  squalid  knot  of  alleys, 

Where  the  town's  bad  blood  once  slept  corruptly, 

Which  now  the  little  chapel  rallies 

And  leads  into  day  again, ^its  priestliness 

Lending  itself  to  hide  their  beastliness 

So  cleverly  (thanks  in  part  to  the  mason). 

And  putting  so  cheery  a  whitewashed  face  on 

Those  neophytes  too  much  in  lack  of  it, 

That,  where  you  cross  the  common  as  I  did. 

And  meet  the  party  thus  presided, 

"  Mount  Zion  "  with  Love-lane  at  the  back  of  it, 

They  front  you  as  little  disconcerted 


102 

As,  bound  for  the  hills,  her  fate  averted, 

And  her  wicked  people  made  to  mind  him, 

Lot  might  have  marched  with  Gomorrah  behind  him. 

In  the  same  light  and  humorous,  half  irreverent  style,  he  proceeds  to  a 
somewhat  detailed  description  of  the  people  and  their  uncouth  worship — 
rot  altogether  a  caricature,  but  evidently  wanting  in  that  sympathy  with 
the  good  at  the  heart  of  it,  the  thought  of  which  was  afterwards  so  strongly 
borne  in  upon  his  soul.  So,  he  "very  soon  had  enough  of  it,"  and  gladly 
"  flung  out  of  the  httle  chapel  "  ' '  into  the  fresh  night  air  again." 

IV. 

There  was  a  lull  in  the  rain,  a  lull 

In  the  wind  too  ;  the  moon  was  risen, 

And  would  have  shone  out  pure  and  full. 

But  for  the  ramparted  cloud-prison. 

Block  on  block  built  up  in  the  West, 

For  what  purpose  the  wind  knows  best, 

Who  changes  his  mind  continually. 

And  the  empty  other  half  of  the  sky 

Seemed  in  its  silence  as  if  it  knew 

What,  any  moment,  might  look  through 

A  chance  gap  in  that  fortress  massy  : — 

Through  its  fissures  you  got  hints 

Of  the  flying  moon,  by  the  shifting  tints, 

Now,  a  dull  lion-colour,  now,  brassy 

Burning  to  yellow,  and  whitest  yellow, 

Like  furnace-smoke  just  ere  the  flames  bellow, 

All  a-simmer  with  intense  strain 

To  let  her  through, — then  blank  again. 

At  the  hope  of  her  appearance  failing. 

Just  by  the  chapel,  a  break  in  the  railing 

Shows  a  narrow  path  directly  across  ; 


I03 

'T  is  ever  dry  walking  there,  on  the  moss — 

Besides,  you  go  gently  all  the  way  uphill 

I  stooped  under  and  soon  felt  better ; 

My  head  grew  lighter,  my  limbs  more  supple, 

As  I  walked  on,  glad  to  have  slipt  the  fetter. 

My  mind  was  full  of  the  scene  I  had  left, 

That  placid  flock,  that  pastor  vociferant, 

— How  this  outside  was  pure  and  different ! 

The  sermon,  now — what  a  mingled  weft 

Of  good  and  ill !     Were  either  less. 

Its  fellow  had  coloured  the  whole  distinctly  ; 

But  alas  for  the  excellent  earnestness. 

And  the  truths,  quite  true  if  stated  succinctly, 

But  as  surely  false,  in  their  quaint  presentment, 

However  to  pastor  and  flock's  contentment ! 

Say  rather,  such  truths  looked  false  to  your  eyes, 

With  his  provings  and  parallels  twisted  and  twined. 

Tin  how  could  you  know  them,  grown  double  their  size 

In  the  natural  fog  of  the  good  man's  mind. 

Like  yonder  spots  of  our  roadside  lamps. 

Haloed  about  with  the  common's  damps  ? 

Truth  remains  true,  the  fault 's  in  the  prover ; 

The  zeal  was  good,  and  the  aspiration  ; 

And  yet,  and  yet,  yet,  fifty  times  over, 

Pharaoh  received  no  demonstration, 

By  his  Baker's  dream  of  Baskets  Three, 

Of  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity, — 

Although,  as  our  preacher  thus  embellished  it, 

Apparently  his  hearers  relished  it 

With  so  unfeigned  a  gust— who  knows  if 

They  did  not  prefer  our  friend  to  Joseph  ? 


104 


V. 


But  wherefore  be  harsh  on  a  single  case  ? 

After  how  many  modes,  this  Christmas-Eve, 

Does  the  selfsame  weary  thing  take  place  ? 

The  same  endeavour  to  make  you  believe, 

And  with  much  the  same  effect,  no  more  : 

Each  method  abundantly  convincing. 

As  I  say,  to  those  convinced  before, 

But  scarce  to  be  swallowed  without  wincing 

By  the  not-as-yet-convinced.     For  me, 

I  have  my  own  church  equally  : 

And  in  this  church  my  faith  sprang  first  ! 

(I  said,  as  I  reached  the  rising  ground. 

And  the  wind  began  again,  with  a  burst 

Of  rain  in  my  face,  and  a  glad  rebound 

From  the  heart  beneath,  as  if,  God  speeding  me, 

I  entered  his  church-door,  nature  leading  me) 

— In  youth  I  looked  to  these  very  skies, 

And  probing  their  immensities, 

I  found  God  there,  his  visible  power  ; 

Yet  felt  in  my  heart,  amid  all  its  sense 

Of  the  power,  an  equal  evidence 

That  his  love,  there  too,  was  the  nobler  dower. 

Then  follows  a  long  and  rather  abstruse  passage,  leading  up  to  the  fol- 
lowing lofty  and  inspiring  conclusion : — 

So,  gazing  up,  in  my  youth,  at  love 
As  seen  through  power,  ever  above 
All  modes  which  make  it  manifest, 
My  soul  brought  all  to  a  single  test — 
That  he,  the  Eternal  First  and  Last, 
W^ho,  in  his  power,  had  so  surpassed 


105 

All  man  conceives  of  what  is  might, — 

Whose  wisdom,  too,  showed  infinite, 

— Would  prove  as  infinitely  good  ; 

Would  never,  (my  soul  understood,) 

With  power  to  work  all  love  desires. 

Bestow  e'en  less  than  man  requires ; 

That  he  who  endlessly  was  teaching,' 

Above  my  spirit's  utmost  reaching, 

What  love  can  do  in  the  leaf  or  stone, 

(So  that  to  master  this  alone. 

This  done  in  the  stone  or  leaf  for  me, 

I  must  go  on  learning  endlessly) 

Would  never  need  that  I,  in  turn, 

Should  point  him  out  defect  unheeded, 

And  show  that  God  had  yet  to  learn 

What  the  meanest  human  creature  needed, 

— Not  life,  to  wit,  for  a  few  short  years. 

Tracking  his  way  through  doubts  and  fears, 

While  the  stupid  earth  on  which  I  stay 

Suffers  no  change,  but  passive  adds 

Its  myriad  years  to  myriads. 

Though  I,  he  gave  it  to,  decay, 

Seeing  death  come  and  choose  about  me. 

And  my  dearest  ones  depart  without  me. 

No :  love  which,  on  earth,  amid  all  the  shows  of  it, 

Has  ever  been  seen  the  sole  good  of  life  in  it, 

The  love,  ever  growing  there,  spite  of  the  strife  in  it, 

Shall  arise,  made  perfect,  from  death's  repose  of  it. 

And  I  shall  behold  thee,  face  to  face, 

O  God,  and  in  thy  light  retrace 

How  in  all  I  loved  here,  still  wast  thou  ! 


io6 

Whom  pressing  to,  then,  as  I  fain  would  now^ 

I  shall  find  as  able  to  satiate 

The  love,  thy  gift,  as  my  spirit's  wonder 

Thou  art  able  to  quicken  and  sublimate, 

With  this  sky  of  thine,  that  I  now  walk  under, 

And  glory  in  thee  for,  as  I  gaze 

Thus,  thus  !     Oh,  let  men  keep  their  ways 

Of  seeking  thee  in  a  narrow  shrine — 

Be  this  my  way  !     And  this  is  mine ! 

The  lunar  rainbow,  so  wonderfully  described  in  the  next  stanza,  is  the 
occasion  and  point  of  departure  of  the  poetic  vision  or  ecstasy  which 
occupies  the  remainder  of  the  poem — 

VI, 

For  lo,  what  think  you  ?  suddenly 

The  rain  and  the  wind  ceased,  and  the  sky 

Received  at  once  the  full  fruition 

Of  the  moon's  consummate  apparition. 

The  black  cloud-barricade  was  riven, 

Ruined  beneath  her  feet,  and  driven 

Deep  in  the  West ;  while,  bare  and  breathless. 

North  and  South  and  East  lay  ready 

For  a  glorious  thing  that,  dauntless,  deathless, 

Sprang  across  them  and  stood  steady. 

'T  was  a  moon-rainbow,  vast  and  perfect, 

From  heaven  to  heaven  extending,  perfect 

As  the  mother-moon's  self,  full  in  face. 

It  rose,  distinctly  at  the  base 

With  its  seven  proper  colours  chorded. 

Which  still,  in  the  rising,  were  compressed, 

Until  at  last  they  coalesced, 


107 

And  supreme  the  spectral  creature  lorded 

In  a  triumph  of  whitest  white, — 

Above  which  intervened  the  night. 

But  above  night  too,  like  only  the  next, 

The  second  of  a  wondrous  sequence, 

Reaching  in  rare  and  rarer  frequence, 

Till  the  heaven  of  heavens  were  circumflexed, 

Another  rainbow  rose,  a  mightier. 

Fainter,  flushier  and  flightier, — 

Rapture  dying  along  its  verge. 

Oh,  whose  foot  shall  I  see  emerge, 

Whose,  from  the  straining  topmost  dark, 

On  to  the  keystone  of  that  arc  ? 

He  did  see  One  emerging  from  the  glory — 

VIII. 

All  at  once  I  looked  up  with  terror. 

He  was  there. 

He  himself  wath  his  human  air. 

On  the  narrow  pathway,  just  before. 

I  saw  the  back  of  him,  no  more — 

He  had  left  the  chapel,  then,  as  I. 

I  forgot  all  about  the  sky. 

No  face  :  only  the  sight 

Of  a  sweepy  garment,  vast  and  white, 

With  a  hem  that  I  could  recognise. 

I  felt  terror,  no  surprise ; 

My  mind  filled  with  the  cataract, 

At  one  bound  of  the  mighty  fact. 

"  I  remember,  he  did  say 


io8 

Doubtless,  that,  to  this  world's  end, 

Where  two  or  three  should  meet  and  pray, 

He  would  be  in  the  midst,  their  friend ; 

Certainly  he  was  there  with  them  !  " 

And  my  pulses  leaped  for  joy 

Of  the  golden  thought  without  alloy, 

That  I  saw  his  very  vesture's  hem. 

Then  rushed  the  blood  black,  cold  and  clear. 

With  a  fresh  enhancing  shiver  of  fear  ; 

And  I  hastened,  cried  out  while  I  pressed 

To  the  salvation  of  the  vest, 

"  But  not  so,  Lord  !     It  cannot  be 

"  That  thou,  indeed,  art  leaving  me— 

"  Me,  that  have  despised  thy  friends  !  " 

The  confession  of  his  sin  in  despising  His  friends  in  the  little  chapel  is 
speedily  followed  by  a  gracious  token  of  forgiveness  : — 

IX. 
****** 

The  whole  face  turned  upon  me  full. 

And  I  spread  myself  beneath  it, 

As  when  the  bleacher  spreads,  to  seethe  it 

In  the  cleansing  sun,  his  wool, — 

Steeps  in  the  flood  of  noontide  whiteness 

Some  defiled,  discoloured  web — 

So  lay  I,  saturate  with  brightness. 

His  sin  thus  purged  (how  exquisitely  wrought  out  the  lovely  simile  of  the 
sun-cleansed  wool!),  he  is  "caught  up  in  the  whirl  and  drift  of  the 
vesture's  amplitude,"  and  thus  clinging  to  the  garment's  hem,  is  carried 
across  land  and  sea — to  a  scene  so  complete  a  contrast  to  the  one  he  has 
just  left  that  he  is  confused,  and  some  time  elapses  before  he  discovers  that 
he  is  in  front  of  St.  Peter's  at  Rome  : — 


109 


And  so  we  crossed  the  world  and  stopped. 

For  where  am  I,  in  city  or  plain, 

Since  I  am  'ware  of  the  world  again  ? 

And  what  is  this  that  rises  propped 

With  pillars  of  prodigious  girth  ? 

Is  it  really  on  the  earth, 

This  miraculous  Dome  of  God  ? 

Has  the  angel's  measuring-rod 

Which  numbered  cubits,  gem  from  gem, 

'Twixt  the  gates  of  the  New  Jerusalem, 

Meted  it  out, — and  what  he  meted, 

Have  the  sons  of  men  completed  ? 

— Binding,  ever  as  he  bade, 

Columns  in  the  colonnade 

With  arms  wide  open  to  embrace 

The  entry  of  the  human  race 

To  the  breast  of  .  .  .  what  is  it,  yon  building, 

Ablaze  in  front,  all  paint  and  gilding. 

With  marble  for  brick,  and  stones  of  price 

For  garniture  of  the  edifice  ? . 

Now  I  see ;  it  is  no  dream  ; 

It  stands  there  and  it  does  not  seem  : 

For  ever,  in  pictures,  thus  it  looks, 

And  thus  I  have  read  of  it  in  books 

Often  in  England,  leagues  away, 

And  wondered  how  these  fountains  play, 

Growing  up  eternally 

Each  to  a  musical  water-tree, 

Whose  blossoms  drop,  a  glittering  boon. 


no 

Before  my  eyes,  in  the  light  of  the  moon, 
To  the  granite  layers  underneath. 

There  follows  a  description  of  the  worship  in  the  great  cathedral — not 
now,  as  before,  unsympathetic  and  merely  critical,  but  giving  evidence  of 
the  liveliest  appreciation  of  the  feelings  of  the  intelligent  and  devout 
ritualist,  as  in  the  following  passage  : — 

Earth  breaks  up,  time  drops  away. 

In  (lows  heaven,  with  its  new  day 

Of  endless  life,  when  he  who  trod. 

Very  man  and  very  God, 

This  earth  in  weakness,  shame  and  pain, 

Dying  the  death  whose  signs  remain 

Up  yonder  on  the  accursed  tree, — 

Shall  come  again,  no  more  to  be 

Of  captivity  the  thrall. 

But  the  one  God,  All  in  all, 

King  ofkings,  Lord  of  lords,  - 

As  his  servant  John  received  the  w^ords, 

"  I  died,  and  live  for  evermore  !  " 

Still  he  cannot  enter  into  it.  He  is  left  outside  the  door.  Distracted 
with  conflicting  emotions,  his  reason  repelled  by  the  superstition,  his  spirit 
attracted  by  the  lofty  devotion  which  he  discovers  at  the  heart  of  the  too 
gorgeous  ritual — he  cannot  make  up  his  mind  whether  he  should  join  them 
for  the  one  reason,  or  shun  them  for  the  other — 

XI. 

*  *  -x-  *  *    ■ 

Though  Rome's  gross  yoke 
Drops  off,  no  more  to  be  endured. 
Her  teaching  is  not  so  obscured 
By  errors  and  perversities, 
That  no  truth  shines  athwart  the  lies  : 
And  he,  whose  eye  detects  a  spark 


Ill 

Even  where,  to  man's,  the  whole  seems  dark, 

May  well  see  flame  where  each  beholder 

Acknowledges  the  embers  smoulder. 

But  I,  a  mere  man,  fear  to  quit 

The  clue  God  gave  me  as  most  fit 

To  guide  my  footsteps  through  life's  maze. 

Because  himself  discerns  all  ways 

Open  to  reach  him  :  I,  a  man 

Able  to  mark  where  faith  began 

To  swerve  aside,  till  from  its  summit 

Judgment  drops  her  damning  plummet, 

Pronouncing  such  a  fotal  space 

Departed  from  the  founder's  base  : 

He  will  not  bid  me  enter  too, 

But  rather  sit,  as  now  I  do. 

Awaiting  his  return  outside. 

— 'T  was  thus  my  reason  straight  replied 

And  joyously  I  turned,  and  pressed 

The  garment's  skirt  upon  my  breast. 

Until,  afresh  its  light  suffusing  me. 

My  heart  cried  "  What  has  been  abusing  me 

That  I  should  wait  here  lonely  and  coldly. 

Instead  of  rising,  entering  boldly. 

Baring  truth's  face,  and  letting  drift 

Her  veils  of  lies  as  they  choose  to  shift  ? 

Do  these  men  praise  him  ?     I  will  raise 

My  voice  up  to  their  point  of  praise  ! 

I  see  the  error  ;  but  above 

The  scope  of  error,  see  the  love. — 

Oh,  love  of  those  first  Christian  days  ! 

— Fanned  so  soon  into  a  blaze, 


112 

From  the  spark  preserved  by  the  trampled  sect, 

That  the  antique  sovereign  Intellect 

Which  then  sat  ruling  in  the  world, 

Like  a  change  in  dreams,  was  hurled 

From  the  throne  he  reigned  upon  : 

You  looked  up  and  he  was  gone. 

The  remainder  of  the  stanza  is  taken  up  with  a  most  eloquent,  but  some- 
what difficult  passage,  illustrating  the  triumph  of  the  new  Love  over  the 
old  Culture.  In  the  following  stanza  he  makes  up  his  mind  that  he  "  will  feast 
his  love,  then  depart  elsewhere,  that  his  intellect  may  find  its  share  "  ;  so 
the  next  transition,  by  the  same  mode  of  rapture,  is  to  a  German  Univer- 
sity.    What  he  sees  there  provokes  again  his  latent  humour  : — 

XIV. 

Alone  !     I  am  left  alone  once  more— 

(Save  for  the  garment's  extreme  fold 

Abandoned  still  to  bless  my  hold) 

Alone,  beside  the  entrance-door 

Of  a  sort  of  temple, — perhaps  a  college, 

— Like  nothing  I  ever  saw  before 

At  home  in  England,  to  my  knowledge. 

The  tall  old  quaint  irregular  town  ! 

It  may  be  .  .  though  which,  I  can't  affirm  .  .  any 

Of  the  famous  middle-age  towns  of  Germany  ; 

And  this  flight  of  stairs  where  I  sit  down. 

Is  it  Halle,  Weimar,  Cassel,  Frankfort, 

Or  Gottingen,  I  have  to  thank  for  't  ? 

It  may  be  Gottingen, — most  likely. 

Through  the  open  door  I  catch  obliquely 

Glimpses  of  a  lecture-hall ; 

And  not  a  bad  assembly  neither, 

Ranged  decent  and  symmetrical 


113 


On  benches,  waiting  what  's  to  see  there  ; 

Which,  holding  still  by  the  vesture's  hem, 

I  also  resolve  to  see  with  them, 

Cautious  this  time  how  I  suffer  to  slip 

The  chance  of  joining  in  fellowship 

With  any  that  call  themselves  his  friends ; 

As  these  folks  do,  I  have  a  notion. 

But  hist — a  buzzing  and  emotion  ! 

All  settle  themselves,  the  while  ascends 

By  the  creaking  rail  to  the  lecture-desk, 

Step  by  step,  deliberate 

Because  of  his  cranium's  over-freight, 

Three  parts  sublime  to  one  grotesque, 

If  I  have  proved  an  accurate  guesser, 

The  hawk-nosed,  high-cheek-boned  Professor. 

I  felt  at  once  as  if  there  ran 

A  shoot  of  love  from  my  heart  to  the  man — 

That  sallow  virgin-minded  studious 

Martyr  to  mild  enthusiasm. 

As  he  uttered  a  kind  of  cough-preludious 

That  woke  my  sympathetic  spasm, 

(Beside  some  spitting  that  made  me  sorry) 

And  stood,  surveying  his  auditory 

With  a  wan  pure  look,  well  nigh  celestial, — 

Those  blue  eyes  had  survived  so  much  ! 

While,  under  the  foot  they  could  not  smutch. 

Lay  all  the  fleshly  and  the  bestial. 

Over  he  bowed,  and  arranged  his  notes. 

Till  the  auditory's  clearing  of  throats 

Was  done  with,  died  into  a  silence  ; 

And,  when  each  glance  was  upward  sent, 

H 


114 

Each  bearded  mouth  composed  intent, 

And  a  pin  might  be  heard  drop  half  a  mile  hence 

He  pushed  back  higher  his  spectacles, 

Let  the  eyes  stream  out  like  lamps  from  cells, 

And  giving  his  head  of  hair — a  hake 

Of  undressed  tow,  for  colour  and  quantity — 

One  rapid  and  impatient  shake, 

(As  our  own  young  England  adjusts  a  jaunty  tie 

When  about  to  impart,  on  mature  digestion. 

Some  thrilling  view  of  the  surplice-question) 

— ^The  Professor's  grave  voice,  sweet  though  hoarse, 

Broke  into  his  Christmas-Eve  discourse. 

The  stanza  which  follows  gives  an  account  of  the  discourse,  which  is  a 
learned  discussion  of  "this  Myth  of  Christ,"  "which,  when  reason  had 
strained  and  abated  it  of  foreign  matter,  left,  for  residuum,  a  man  ! — a 
right  true  man,"  but  nothing  more.  He  has  no  difficulty  in  determining 
his  duty  here  ("this  time  He  would  not  bid  me  enter.")  The  religious 
atmosphere  in  which  Papist  and  Dissenter  live  may  be  far  from  pure,  in  the 
one  case  for  one  reason,  and  in  the  other  for  the  opposite ;  but  either  of 
the  two  is  immeasurably  better  than  the  vacuum  left  when  the  Critic  has 
done  his  work  of  destruction.  Then  follows  a  long  argument  to  show  the 
unreasonableness  of  denying  the  divinity  of  Christ,  only  a  part  of  which 
can  be  given  here. 

XVI, 

***** 
This  time  he  would  not  bid  me  enter 
The  exhausted  air-bell  of  the  Critic. 
Truth's  atmosphere  may  grow  mephitic 
When  Papist  struggles  with  Dissenter, 
Impregnating  its  pristine  clarity, 
— One,  by  his  daily  fare's  vulgarity, 
Its  gust  of  broken  meat  and  garlic  ; 


115 

— One,  by  his  soul's  too-much  presuming 

To  turn  the  frankincense's  fuming 

And  vapours  of  the  candle  starlike 

Into  the  cloud  her  wings  she  buoys  on. 

Each,  that  thus  sets  the  pure  air  seething. 

May  poison  it  for  healthy  breathing — 

But  the  Critic  leaves  no  air  to  poison ; 

Pumps  out  with  ruthless  ingenuity 

Atom  by  atom,  and  leaves  you — vacuity. 

Thus  much  of  Christ,  does  he  reject  ? 

And  what  retain  ?     His  intellect  ? 

What  is  it  I  must  reverence  duly  ? 

Poor  intellect  for  worship,  truly, 

Which  tells  me  simply  what  was  told 

(If  mere  morality,  bereft 

Of  the  God  in  Christ,  be  all  that  's  left) 

Elsewhere  by  voices  manifold  ; 

With  this  advantage,  that  the  stater 

Made  nowise  the  important  stumble 

Of  adding,  he,  the  sage  and  humble, 

Was  also  one  with  the  Creator. 

You  urge  Christ's  followers'  simplicity  : 

But  how  does  shifting  blame,  evade  it  ? 

Have  wisdom's  words  no  more  felicity  ? 

The  stumbling-block,  his  speech — who  laid  it  ? 

How  comes  it  that  for  one  found  able 

To  sift  the  truth  of  it  from  fable. 

Millions  believe  it  to  the  letter? 

Christ's  goodness,  then — does  that  fare  better  ? 

Strange  goodness,  which  upon  the  score 

Of  being  goodness,  the  mere  due 

H    2 


ii6 

Of  man  to  fellow-man,  much  more 

To  God, — should  take  another  view 

Of  its  possessor's  privilege, 

And  bid  him  rule  his  race  !     You  pledge 

Your  fealty  to  such  rule  ?     What,  all — 

From  heavenly  John  and  Attic  Paul, 

And  that  brave  weather-battered  Peter 

Whose  stout  faith  only  stood  completer 

For  buffets,  sinning  to  be  pardoned, 

As,  more  his  hands  hauled  nets,  they  hardened, — ■ 

All,  down  to  you,  the  man  of  men, 

Professing  here  at  Gottingen, 

Compose  Christ's  flock  !     They,  you  and  I, 

Are  sheep  of  a  good  man  ! 

Reasonings  that  grow  out  of  the  main  discussion  are  continued  through- 
out stanzas  17 — 20,  till  once  more  he  is  caught  up  and  carried  back  to  his 
original  starting  point.  The  remainder  of  the  poem  can  now  be  given 
without  interruption,  and  will  be  readily  understood.  (The  exquisite 
development  of  the  simile  of  the  cup  and  the  water  will  be  specially  noted, 
as  also  the  charitable  wish  so  strikingly  expressed  on  behalf  of  the  poor 
Professor,  that  before  the  end  comes  he  may  know  Christ  as  "  the  God  of 
salvation.") 

XXI. 

And  I  caught 
At  the  flying  robe,  and  unrepelled 
Was  lapped  again  in  its  folds  full-fraught 
With  warmth  and  wonder  and  delight, 
God's  mercy  being  infinite. 
For  scarce  had  the  words  escaped  my  tongue, 
When,  at  a  passionate  bound,  I  sprung 
Out  of  the  wandering  world  of  rain. 
Into  the  little  chapel  again. 


117 


XXII. 


How  else  was  I  found  there,  bolt  upright. 

On  my  bench,  as  if  I  had  never  left  it  ? 

— Never  flung  out  on  the  common  at  night 

Nor  met  the  storm  and  wedge-like  cleft  it, 

Seen  the  raree-show  of  Peter's  successor, 

Or  the  laboratory  of  the  Professor  ! 

For  the  Vision,  that  was  true,  I  wist. 

True  as  that  heaven  and  earth  exist. 

There  sat  my  friend,  the  yellow  and  tall, 

With  his  neck  and  its  wen  in  the  selfsame  place ; 

Yet  my  nearest  neighbour's  cheek  showed  gall. 

She  had  slid  away  a  contemptuous  space : 

And  the  old  fat  woman,  late  so  placable. 

Eyed  me  with  symptoms,  hardly  mistakable, 

Of  her  milk  of  kindness  turning  rancid. 

In  short,  a  spectator  might  have  fancied 

That  I  had  nodded,  betrayed  by  slumber. 

Yet  kept  my  seat,  a  warning  ghastly, 

Through  the  heads  of  the  sermon,  nine  in  number, 

And  woke  up  now  at  the  tenth  and  lastly. 

But  again,  could  such  disgrace  have  happened  ? 

Each  friend  at  my  elbow  had  surely  nudged  it  ; 

And,  as  for  the  sermon,  where  did  my  nap  end  ? 

Unless  I  heard  it,  could  I  have  judged  it  ? 

Could  I  report  as  I  dc  at  the  close. 

First,  the  preacher  speaks  through  his  nose  : 

Second,  his  gesture  is  too  emphatic  : 

Thirdly,  to  waive  what  's  pedagogic. 

The  subject-matter  itself  lacks  logic  : 


ii8 


Fourthly,  the  Enghsh  is  ungrammatic. 

Great  news  !  the  preacher  is  found  no  Pascal, 

Whom,  if  I  pleased,  I  might  to  the  task  call 

Of  making  square  to  a  finite  eye 

The  circle  of  infinity, 

And  find  so  all-but-just-succeeding  ! 

Great  news  !  the  sermon  proves  no  reading 

Where  bee-like  in  the  flowers  I  may  bury  me. 

Like  Taylor's  the  immortal  Jeremy  ! 

And  now  that  I  know  the  very  worst  of  him, 

What  was  it  I  thought  to  obtain  at  first  of  him  ? 

Ha  !     Is  God  mocked,  as  he  asks  ? 

Shall  I  take  on  me  to  change  his  tasks, 

And  dare,  despatched  to  a  river-head 

For  a  simple  draught  of  the  element, 

Neglect  the  thing  for  which  he  sent, 

And  return  with  another  thing  instead  ? — 

Saying,  "Because  the  water  found 

"  Welling  up  from  underground, 

"  Is  mingled  with  the  taints  of  earth, 

"  While  thou,  I  know,  dost  laugh  at  dearth, 

"  And  couldst,  at  wink  or  word,  convulse 

"  The  world  with  the  leap  of  a  river-pulse, — 

"Therefore,  I  turned  from  the  oozings  muddy, 

"  And  bring  thee  a  chalice  I  found,  instead  : 

"  See  the  brave  veins  in  the  breccia  ruddy  ! 

"  One  would  suppose  that  the  marble  bled. 

"  What  matters  the  water  ?     A  hope  I  have  nursed 

"  The  waterless  cup  will  quench  my  thirst." 

— Better  have  knelt  at  the  poorest  stream 

That  trickles  in  pain  from  the  straitest  rift ! 


119 

For  the  less  or  the  more  is  all  God's  gift, 

■Who  blocks  up  or  breaks  wide  the  granite-seam. 

And  here,  is  there  water  or  not,  to  drink  ? 

I  then,  in  ignorance  and  weakness. 

Taking  God's  help,  have  attained  to  think 

My  heart  does  best  to  receive  in  meekness 

That  mode  of  worship,  as  most  to  his  mind, 

^^'here,  earthly  aids  being  cast  behind. 

His  All  in  All  appears  serene 

With  the  thinnest  human  veil  between, 

Letting  the  mystic  lamps,  the  seven. 

The  many  motions  of  his  spirit. 

Pass,  as  they  list,  to  earth  from  heaven. 

For  the  preacher's  merit  or  demerit. 

It  were  to  be  wished  the  flaws  were  fewer 

In  the  earthern  vessel,  holding  treasure, 

Which  lies  as  safe  in  a  golden  ewer ; 

But  the  main  thing  is,  does  it  hold  good  measure  ? 

Heaven  soon  sets  right  all  other  matters  ! — 

Ask,  else,  these  ruins  of  humanity. 

This  flesh  worn  out  to  rags  and  tatters. 

This  soul  at  struggle  with  insanity, 

Who  thence  take  comfort,  can  I  doubt  ? 

Which  an  empire  gained,  were  a  loss  without. 

May  it  be  mine  !     And  let  us  hope 

That  no  worse  blessing  befall  the  Pope, 

Turn'd  sick  at  last  of  to-day's  buffoonery. 

Of  posturings  and  [)ctticoatings, 

Beside  his  Bourbon  bully's  gloatings 

In  the  bloody  orgies  of  drunk  poltroonery  ! 

Nor  may  the  Professor  forego  its  peace 


I20 


At  Gottingen  presently,  when,  in  the  dusk 

Of  his  hfe,  if  his  cough,  as  I  fear,  should  increase 

Prophesied  of  by  that  horrible  husk — 

When  thicker  and  thicker  the  darkness  fills 

The  world  through  his  misty  spectacles. 

And  he  gropes  for  something  more  substantial 

Than  a  fable,  myth  or  personification, — 

May  Christ  do  for  him  what  no  mere  man  shall, 

And  stand  confessed  as  the  God  of  salvation ! 

Meantime,  in  the  still  recurring  fear 

Lest  myself,  at  unawares,  be  found. 

While  attacking  the  choice  of  my  neighbours  round, 

With  none  of  my  own  made — I  choose  here  ! 

The  giving  out  of  the  hymn  reclaims  me ; 

I  have  done  :  and  if  any  blames  me, 

Thinking  that  merely  to  touch  in  brevity 

The  topics  I  dwell  on,  were  unlawful, — 

Or  worse,  that  I  trench,  with  undue  levity. 

On  the  bounds  of  the  holy  and  the  awful, — 

I  praise  the  heart,  and  pity  the  head  of  him, 

And  refer  myself  to  Thee,  instead  of  him, 

Who  head  and  heart  alike  discernest, 

Looking  below  light  speech  we  utter, 

When  frothy  spume  and  frequent  sputter 

Prove  that  the  soul's  depths  boil  in  earnest ! 

May  truth  shine  out,  stand  ever  before  us  ! 

I  put  up  pencil  and  join  chorus 

To  Hepzibah  tune,  without  further  apology, 

The  last  five  verses  of  the  third  section 

Of  the  seventeenth  hymn  of  Whitfield's  Collection, 

To  conclude  with  the  doxology. 


121 


E^STER-D.AY. 

As  Christmas-Eve  has  suggested  the  subject  of  the  Christian  Faith, 
Easter-Day  gives  occasion  to  a  discussion  concerning  the  Christian  Life — 
the  life  of  those  who  are  "  risen  with  Christ."  The  poem  is  in  substance  a 
conversation  or  discussion  between  two  persons,  one  of  whom  (a  thorough 
Christian)  finds  it  very  hard,  while  the  other  (who  takes  a  much  lower  and 
more  common-place  view  of  spiritual  things)  thinks  it  quite  easy,  to  be  a 
Christian.  It  is  no.t,  however,  in  the  form  of  a  conversation.  As  usual  in 
Browning's  work,  one  speaks,  stating  his  own  views  and  quoting  the  other's, 
which  are  therefore  distinguished  from  his  own  (except  when  he  quotes,  as 
he  sometimes  does,  from  himself)  by  quotation  marks.  The  argument  is 
too  abstruse  to  be  followed  out  in  all  its  ramifications  ;  but  enough  of  it 
can  be  given  to  render  quite  intelligible  the  extracts  from  it  which  we  find  it 
possible  to  give.     The  opening  sentence  will  give  the  theme  : — 


How  very  hard  it  is  to  be 
A  Christian !     Hard  for  you  and  me, 
■ — Not  the  mere  task  of  making  real 
That  duty  up  to  its  ideal, 
Effecting  thus,  complete  and  whole, 
A  purpose  of  the  human  soul — 
For  that  is  always  hard  to  do  ; 
But  hard,  I  mean,  for  me  and  you 
To  realize  it,  more  or  less. 
With  even  the  moderate  success 
Which  commonly  repays  our  strife 
To  carry  out  the  aims  of  life. 

After  some  preliminary  discussion  about  faith   in  its  rcl.uion  to  life,  the 
easy-going  friend  takes  this  position  : — 


122 


VI. 
*  *  *  *  * 

"  Renounce  the  world  ! 
"Were  that  a  mighty  hardship  ?     Plan 
"  A  pleasant  life,  and  straight  some  man 
"  Beside  you,  with,  if  he  thought  fit, 
"Abundant  means  to  compass  it, 
"  Shall  turn  deliberate  aside 
"  To  try  and  live  as,  if  you  tried 
"  You  clearly  might,  yet  most  despise. 
"  One  friend  of  mine  wears  out  his  eyes, 
""Slighting  the  stupid  joys  of  sense, 
"  In  patient  hope  that,  ten  years  hence, 

"  '  Somewhat  completer,'  he  may  say, 

"  My  list  of  coleoptera  !  ' 

"While  just  the  other  who  most  laughs 

"  At  him,  above  all  epitaphs 

"  Aspires  to  have  his  tomb  describe 

"  Himself  as  sole  among  the  tribe 

"  Of  snuffbox-fanciers,  who  possessed 

"  A  Grignon  with  the  Regent's  crest. 

"  So  that,  subduing,  as  you  want, 

"  Whatever  stands  predominant 

"  Among  my  earthly  appetites 

"For  tastes  and  smells  and  sounds  and  sights, 

"  I  shall  be  doing  that  alone, 

"  To  gain  a  palm-branch  and  a  throne, 

"  Which  fifty  people  undertake 

"  To  do,  and  gladly,  for  the  sake 

"  Of  giving  a  Semitic  guess, 

"  Or  playing  pawns  at  blindfold  chess." 


123 

The  stanza  which  follows  gives  the  speaker's  answer,  ending  with  this 
striking  passage  : — 

"  Renounce  the  world ! " — Ah,  were  it  done 

By  merely  cutting  one  by  one 

Your  limbs  off,  with  your  wise  head  last, 

How  easy  were  it ! — how  soon  past. 

If  once  in  the  believing  mood  ! 

To  which  the  other  replies  by  reproaching  him  for  ingratitude  to  God, 
who  really  asks  us  to  give  up  nothing  that  is  good,  but  only  to  observe  such 
moderation  in  our  pleasures  that  life  is  all  the  more  enjoyable,  while  sorrow 
almost  disappears,  transfigured  in  the  light  of  love.  This  answer  has  such 
a  ring  of  the  true  metal  in  it,  that  the  speaker  begins  his  rejoinder  with  the 
question,  "Do  you  say  this,  or  I?"  and  then  proceeds  (in  a  passage  of 
wonderful  power)  to  expose  the  superficiality  of  the  view  he  is  endeavouring 
to  support. 

VIII. 

Do  you  say  this,  or  I  ? — Oh,  you  ! 
Then,  what,  my  friend  ? — (thus  I  pursue 
Our  parley) — you  indeed  opine 
That  the  Eternal  and  Divine 
Did,  eighteen  centuries  ago, 
In  very  truth  .  .  .  Enough  !  you  know 
The  all-stupendous  tale, — that  Birth, 
That  Life,  that  Death  !     And  all,  the  earth 
Shuddered  at, — all,  the  heavens  grew  black 
Rather  than  see  ;  all,  nature's  rack 
And  throe  at  dissolution's  brink 
Attested, — all  took  place,  you  think. 
Only  to  give  our  joys  a  zest. 
And  prove  our  sorrows  for  the  best  ? 
We  differ,  then  !     Were  I,  still  pale 
And  heartstruck  at  the  dreadful  tale, 
Waiting  to  hear  God's  voice  declare 


124 

What  horror  followed  for  my  share, 

As  implicated  in  the  deed, 

Apart  from  other  sins, — concede 

That  if  he  blacked  out  in  a  blot 

My  brief  life's  pleasantness,  't  were  not 

So  very  disproportionate  ! 

Or  there  might  be  another  fate — 

I  certainly  could  understand 

(If  fancies  were  the  thing  in  hand) 

How  God  might  save,  at  that  day's  price, 

The  impure  in  their  impurities, 

Give  formal  licence  and  complete 

To  choose  the  fair  and  pick  the  sweet. 

But  there  be  certain  words,  broad,  plain, 

Uttered  again  and  yet  again, 

Hard  to  mistake  or  overgloss — 

Announcing  this  world's  gain  for  loss. 

And  bidding  us  reject  the  same  : 

The  whole  world  lieth  (they  proclaim) 

In  wickedness, — come  out  of  it ! 

Turn  a  deaf  ear,  if  you  think  fit, 

But  I  who  thrill  through  every  nerve 

At  thought  of  w'hat  deaf  ears  deserve, — 

How  do  you  counsel  in  the  case  ? 

The  counsel  was,  to  choose  by  all  means  the  safe  side,  by  giving  up  every- 
thing as  literally  as  did  the  martyrs  in  the  early  days  of  persecution  ;  at 
which  a  shudder  of  doubt  comes  over  him,  and  he  answers  (note  the  very 
remarkable  illustration  of  the  moles  and  the  grasshoppers)  : — 

X. 

***** 
If  after  all  we  should  mistake. 
And  so  renounce  life  for  the  sake 


125 

Of  death  and  nothing  else  ?     You  hear 

Our  friends  we  jeered  at,  send  the  jeer 

Back  to  ourselves  with  good  effect — 

"  There  were  my  beetles  to  collect ! 

"  My  box — a  trifle,  I  confess, 

"  But  here  I  hold  it,  ne'ertheless  !  " 

Poor  idiots,  (let  us  pluck  up  heart 

And  answer)  we,  the  better  part 

Have  chosen,  though  't  were  only  hope, — 

Nor  envy  moles  like  you  that  grope 

Amid  your  veritable  muck. 

More  than  the  grasshoppers  would  truck, 

For  yours,  their  passionate  life  away. 

That  spends  itself  in  leaps  all  day 

To  reach  the  sun,  you  want  the  eyes 

To  see,  as  they  the  wings  to  rise 

And  match  the  noble  hearts  of  them  ! 

Thus  the  contemner  we  contemn, — 

And,  when  doubt  strikes  us,  thus  we  ward 

Its  stroke  off,  caught  upon  our  guard, 

— Not  struck  enough  to  overturn 

Our  faith,  but  shake  it — make  us  learn 

What  I  began  with,  and,  I  wis, 

End,  having  proved, — how  hard  it  is 

To  be  a  Christian  ! 

His  friend  now  reproaches  him  with  the  thanklessness  of  the  task  he  is 
undertaking,  in  trying  to  so  little  purpose  to  disturb  the  peace  of  a  man 
who  has  no  such  high-flown  views  of  duty  ;  whereupon  he  relates  to  him  a 
wonderful  experience  he  had  on  Easter-morn  three  years  before : — 

XIV. 

I  commence 

By  trying  to  inform  you,  whence 


120 

It  comes  that  every  Easter-night 
As  now,  I  sit  up,  watch,  till  light, 
Upon  those  chimney-stacks  and  roofs, 
Give,  through  my  window-pane,  grey  proofs 
That  Easter-day  is  breaking  slow. 
On  such  a  night  three  years  ago. 
It  chanced  that  I  had  cause  to  cross 
The  common,  where  the  chapel  was, 
Our  friend  spoke  of,  the  other  day — 
You  've  not  forgotten,  I  dare  say. 
I  fell  to  musing  of  the  time 
So  close,  the  blessed  matin-prime 
All  hearts  leap  up  at,  in  some  guise- 
One  could  not  well  do  otherwise. 
Insensibly  my  thoughts  were  bent 
Toward  the  main  point ;  I  overwent 
Much  the  same  ground  of  reasoning 
As  you  and  I  just  now.     One  thing 
Remained,  however — one  that  tasked 
My  soul  to  answer  ;  and  I  asked, 
Fairly  and  frankly,  what  might  be 
That  History,  that  Faith,  to  me 
— Me  there — not  me  in  some  domain 
Built  up  and  peopled  by  my  brain, 
Weighing  its  merits  as  one  weighs 
Mere  theories  for  blame  or  praise, 
— The  kingcraft  of  the  Lucumons, 
Or  Fourier's  scheme,  its  pros  and  cons,— 
But  my  faith  there,  or  none  at  all. 
"  How  were  my  case,  now,  did  I  fall 
"  Dead  here,  this  minute — should  I  lie 
"  Faithful  or  faithless  ?  " 


12/ 

To  this  solemn  question  a  friendly  answer  seems  to  come  from  Common 
Sense,  assuring  him  that  all  would  be  right ;  for,  though  his  ship  might  not 
sail  very  grandly  into  the  eternal  haven,  it  was  enough  if,  in  whatever  state 
of  wreck,  it  arrived  at  all  ;  which  leads  him  to  utter  the  deepest  wish  and 
expectation  of  his  heart  : — • 

Would  the  ship  reach  home  ! 

I  wish  indeed  "  God's  kingdom  come — " 

The  day  when  I  shall  see  appear 

His  bidding,  as  my  duty,  clear 

From  doubt  !     And  it  shall  dawn,  that  day, 

Some  future  season  ;  Easter  may 

Prove,  not  impossibly,  the  time — 

•  Yes,  that  were  striking — fates  would  chime 

So  aptly  !     Easter-morn,  to  bring 

The  Judgment ! — deeper  in  the  spring 

Than  now,  however,  when  there  's  snow 

Capping  the  hills  ;  for  earth  must  show 

All  signs  of  meaning  to  pursue 

Her  tasks  as  she  was  wont  to  do 

— The  skylark,  taken  by  surprise 

As  we  ourselves,  shall  recognise 

Sudden  the  end.     For  suddenly 

It  comes  ;  the  dreadfulness  must  be 

In  that ;  all  warrants  the  belief — 

"At  night  it  cometh  like  a  thief." 

I  fancy  why  the  trumpet  blows  ; 

— Plainly,  to  wake  one.     From  repose 

We  shall  start  up,  at  last  awake 

From  life,  that  insane  dream  we  take 

For  waking  now. 

***** 

The  next  stanza  gives  the  famous  description  of  the  fiery  aurora,  when 
even  "  the  south  firmament  with  north-fire  did  its  wings  refledgc  !  "  (Com- 
pare description  of  lunar  rainbow  in  "Christmas-Eve.")  He  feels  sure 
that  his  wish  is  realized,  and  the  Judgment  Day  has  come  1 


128 


XV. 


I  found 
Suddenly  all  the  midnight  round 
One  fire.     The  dome  of  heaven  had  stood 
As  made  up  of  a  multitude 
Of  handbreadth  cloudlets,  one  vast  rack 
Of  ripples  infinite  and  black, 
From  sky  to  sky.     Sudden  there  went, 
Like  horror  and  astonishment, 
A  fierce  vindictive  scribble  of  red 
Quick  flame  across,  as  if  one  said 
(The  angry  scribe  of  Judgment)  "  There — 
"  Burn  it !  "     And  straight  I  was  aware 
That  the  whole  ribwork  round,  minute 
Cloud  touching  cloud  beyond  compute, 
Was  tinted,  each  with  its  own  spot 
Of  burning  at  the  core,  till  clot 
Jammed  against  clot,  and  spilt  its  fire 
Over  all  heaven,  which  'gan  suspire 
As  fanned  to  measure  equable, — 
Just  so  great  conflagrations  kill 
Night  overhead,  and  rise  and  sink. 
Reflected.     Now  the  fire  would  shrink 
And  wither  off  the  blasted  face 
Of  heaven,  and  I  distinct  might  trace 
The  sharp  black  ridgy  outlines  left 
Unburned  like  network — then,  each  cleft 
The  fire  had  been  sucked  back  into, 
Regorged,  and  out  it  surging  flew 
Furiously,  and  night  writhed  inflamed, 


129 

Till,  tolerating  to  be  tamed 
No  longer,  certain  rays  world-wide 
Shot  downwardly.     On  ever}'  side 
Caught  past  escape,  the  earth  was  lit ; 
As  if  a  dragon's  nostril  split, 
And  all  his  famished  ire  o'erflowed  ; 
Then  as  he  winced  at  his  lord's  goad, 
Back  he  inhaled  :  whereat  I  found 
The  clouds  into  vast  pillars  bound, 
Based  on  the  corners  of  the  earth, 
Propping  the  skies  at  top  :  a  dearth 
Of  fire  i'  the  violet  intervals. 
Leaving  exposed  the  utmost  walls 
Of  time,  about  to  tumble  in 
And  end  the  world. 

XVI. 

I  felt  begin 
The  Judgment-Day  :  to  retrocede 
Was  too  late  now.     "  In  very  deed," 
(I  uttered  to  myself)  "that  Day  !" 
The  intuition  burned  away 
All  darkness  from  my  spirit  too  : 
There,  stood  I,  found  and  fixed,  I  knew, 
Choosing  the  world.     The  choice  was  made  ; 
And  naked  and  disguiseless  stayed. 
And  unevadable,  the  fact. 
My  brain  held  ne'ertheless  compact 
Its  senses,  nor  my  heart  declined 
Its  office  ;  rather,  both  combined 
To  help  me  in  this  juncture.     I 

I 


I30 

Lost  not  a  second, — agony 

Gave  boldness  :  since  my  life  had  end 

And  my  choice  with  it — best  defend, 

Applaud  both  !     I  resolved  to  say, 

"  So  was  I  framed  by  thee,  such  way 

"  I  put  to  use  thy  senses  here  ! 

"  It  was  so  beautiful,  so  near, 

"  Thy  world, — what  could  I  then  but  choose 

"  My  part  there  ?     Nor  did  I  refuse 

"  To  look  above  the  transient  boon 

"  Of  time  ;  but  it  was  hard  so  soon 

"  As  in  a  short  life,  to  give  up 

"  Such  beauty  :  I  could  put  the  cup 

**  Undrained  of  half  its  fulness,  by  ; 

"  But,  to  renounce  it  utterly, 

"  — That  was  too  hard  !     Nor  did  the  cry 

"  Which  bade  renounce  it,  touch  my  brain 

"  Authentically  deep  and  plain 

"  Enough  to  make  my  lips  let  go. 

*'  But  thou,  who  knowest  all,  dost  know 

"  Whether  I  was  not,  life's  brief  while, 

"  Endeavouring  to  reconcile 

"  Those  lips  (too  tardily,  alas  !) 

"  To  letting  the  dear  remnant  pass, 

"  One  day, — some  drops  of  earthly  good 

"  Untasted  !     Is  it  for  this  mood, 

"  That  thou,  whose  earth  delights  so  well, 

"  Hast  made  its  complement  a  hell  ?  " 

XVII. 
A  final  belch  of  fire  like  blood, 


131 

Overbroke  all  heaven  in  one  flood 
Of  doom.     Then  fire  was  sky,  and  sky 
Fire,  and  both,  one  brief  ecstasy, 
Then  ashes.     But  I  heard  no  noise 
(Whatever  was)  because  a  voice 
Beside  me  spoke  thus,  "  Life  is  done, 
"  Time  ends,  Eternity  's  begun, 
"  And  thou  art  judged  for  evermore." 

As  in   "Christmas-Eve,"  the  question  rises  of  a  Presence  in  the  awful 


scene. 


XIX. 

♦  ♦  *  *  * 

What  if,  'twixt  skies 
And  prostrate  earth,  he  should  surprise 
The  imaged  vapour,  head  to  foot, 
Surveying,  motionless  and  mute. 
Its  work,  ere,  in  a  whirlwind  rapt 
It  vanish  up  again  ? — So  hapt 
My  chance.     He  stood  there.     Like  the  smoke 
Pillared  o'er  Sodom,  when  day  broke, — 
I  saw  him.     One  magnific  pall 
Mantled  in  massive  fold  and  fall 
His  head,  and  coiled  in  snaky  swathes 
About  his  feet :  night's  black,  that  bathes 
All  else,  broke,  grizzled  with  despair. 
Against  the  soul  of  blackness  there. 
A  gesture  told  the  mood  within — 
That  wrapped  right  hand  which  based  the  chin 
That  intense  meditation  fixed 
On  his  procedure, — pity  mixed 
With  the  fulfilment  of  decree. 

I    2 


132 

Motionless,  thus,  he  spoke  to  me, 
Who  fell  before  his  feet,  a  mass, 
No  man  now. 

Then  follows  the  Sentence,  excluding  him  from  the  heaven  of  spirit,  and 
leaving  him  to  the  world  of  sense,  hopeless  for  ever  of  anything  higher — a 
sentence  which  seemed  to  him  at  first  to  be  rather  a  reward  than  a  punish- 
ment, as  he  thought  of  "  earth's  resources — vast  exhaustless  beauty,  endless 
change  of  wonder  !  "     Even  a  fern-leaf  a  museum  in  itself ! 

The  answer  of  the  Voice  to  this  shallow  thought  k-ads  us  into  the  very 
loftiest  regions  of  the  imagination,  suggesting  views  of  the  future  of  the 
redeemed  which  make  the  soul  thrill  with  eager  expectancy — 

XXIV. 

Then  the  Voice,  "  Welcome  so  to  rate 

"  The  arras-folds  that  variegate 

"  The  earth,  God's  antechamber,  well ! 

"  The  wise,  who  waited  there,  could  tell 

"  By  these,  what  royalties  in  store 

"  Lay  one  step  past  the  entrance-door. 

"  For  whom,  was  reckoned,  not  too  much, 

"  'J  his  life's  munificence  ?     For  such 

"  As  thou, — a  race,  whereof  scarce  one 

"  Was  able,  in  a  million, 

"  To  feel  that  any  marvel  lay 

"  In  objects  round  his  feet  all  day  ; 

"  Scarce  one  in  many  millions  more, 

"  Willing,  if  able,  to  explore 

"  The  secreter,  minuter  charm  ! 

"  — Brave  souls,  a  fern-leaf  could  disarm 

"  Of  power  to  cope  with  God's  intent, — 

"  Or  scared  if  the  south  firmament 

"  With  north-fire  did  its  wings  refledge  ! 


"  All  partial  beauty  was  a  pledge 

"  Of  beauty  in  its  plenitude  : 

"  But  since  the  pledge  sufficed  thy  mood, 

"  Retain  it !  plenitude  be  theirs 

"  Who  looked  above  !  " 

m 

At  this  answer  "sharp  despairs  shot  through"  him,  at  the  thought  of 
what  he  had  missed  ;  but  on  reflection  he  finds  comfort  in  the  prospect  of  the 
possibilities  of  Art.  Again  the  inexorable  voice  is  heard,  pronouncing  loss 
unspeakable.  'Even  if  he  could  be  a  Michelangelo  (Buonarroti),  it  would 
be  only  the  initial  earthly  stage  of  his  development  that  was  possible  for 
him.  (The  whole  passage  is  magnificent  ;  but  perhaps  the  exquisitely 
wrought-out  illustration  of  the  lizard  in  its  narrow  rock-chamber  will  be 
most  enjoyed. ) 

XXVI. 


If  such  his  soul's  capacities, 

Even  while  he  trod  the  earth, —  think,  now, 

What  pomp  in  Buonarroti's  brow, 

With  its  new  palace-brain  where  dwells 

Superb  the  soul,  unvexed  by  cells 

That  crumbled  with  the  transient  clay ! 

What  visions  will  his  right  hand's  sway 

Still  turn  to  form,  as  still  they  burst 

Upon  him  ?     How  will  he  quench  thirst, 

Titanically  infantine, 

Laid  at  the  breast  of  the  Divine  ? 

Does  it  confound  thee, — this  first  page 

Emblazoning  man's  heritage  ? — 

Can  this  alone  absorb  thy  sight, 

As  pages  were  not  infinite, — 

Like  the  omipotence  which  tasks 

Itself,  to  furnish  all  that  asks 


134 

"  The  soul  it  means  to  satiate  ? 

"What  was  the  world,  the  starry  state 

"  Of  the  broad  skies, — what,  all  displays 

"  Of  power  and  beauty  intermixed, 

"Which  now  thy  soul  is  chained  betwixt, — 

"  What  else  than  needful  furniture 

"  For  life's  first  stage  ?     God's  work,  be  sure, 

"  No  more  spreads  wasted,  than  falls  scant ! 

"  He  filled,  did  not  exceed,  man's  want 

"  Of  beauty  in  this  life.     But  through 

"  Life  pierce, — and  what  has  earth  to  do, 

"  Its  utmost  beauty's  appanage, 

"  With  the  requirement  of  next  stage  ? 

"  Did  God  pronounce  earth  '  very  good  '  ? 

"  Needs  must  it  be,  while  understood 

"  For  man's  preparatory  state  ; 

"  Nothing  to  heighten  nor  abate  : 

"  Transfer  the  same  completeness  here, 

"  To  serve  a  new  state's  use, — and  drear 

"  Deficiency  gapes  every  side  ! 

"  The  good,  tried  once,  were  bad,  retried. 

"  See  the  enwrapping  rocky  niche, 

"  Sufficient  for  the  sleep,  in  which 

"  The  lizard  breathes  for  ages  safe  : 

"  Split  the  mould— and  as  this  would  chafe 

"  The  creature's  new  world-widened  sense, 

"  One  minute  after  day  dispense 

"  The  thousand  sounds  and  sights  that  broke 

"In  on  him  at  the  chisel's  stroke, — 

"  So,  in  God's  eye,  the  earth's  first  stuff 

"  Was,  neither  more  nor  less,  enough 


135 


To  house  man's  soul,  man's  need  fulfil, 

Man  reckoned  it  immeasurable  ? 

So  thinks  the  lizard  of  his  vault ! 

Could  God  be  taken  in  default, 

Short  of  contrivances,  by  you, — 

Or  reached,  ere  ready  to  pursue 

His  progress  through  eternity  ? 

That  chambered  rock,  the  lizard's  world, 

Your  easy  mallet's  blow  has  hurled 

To  nothingness  for  ever ;  so. 

Has  God  abolished  at  a  blow 

This  world,  wherein  his  saints  were  pent, — 

Who,  though  found  grateful  and  content, 

With  the  provision  there,  as  thou, 

Yet  knew  he  would  not  disallow 

Their  spirit's  hunger,  felt  as  well, — 

Unsated, — not  unsatable. 

As  paradise  gives  proof.     Deride 

Their  choice  now,  thou  who  sit'st  outside  !  " 


The  poem  proceeds  in  the  same  lofty  strain,  till — humbled  to  the  dust  at 
the  thought  of  the  unutterable  folly  of  his  choice,  especially  in  view  of  the 
love  of  God  expressed  on  Calvary,  a  love  which  he  had  slighted  in  the 
happy  days  gone  by — he  presents  the  touching  plea  of  the  31st  stanza,  the 
result  of  which  appears  in  what  follows,  spoken  of  by  Professor  Kirkman 
of  Cambridge,  as  ' '  the  splendid  consummation  of  Easter-Day  so  closely 
resembUng  the  well-known  crisis  in  Faust. " 


XXXI. 


And  I  cowered  dcprecatingly — 

"  Thou  Love  of  God !     Or  let  me  die, 

"  Or  grant  what  shall  seem  heaven  almost ! 


136 

"  Let  me  not  know  that  all  is  lost, 

"  Though  lost  it  be — leave  me  not  tied 

"  To  this  despair,  this  corpse-like  bride  ! 

"  Let  that  old  life  seem  mine — no  more- 

"  With  limitation  as  before, 

"  With  darkness,  hunger,  toil,  distress  : 

"  Be  all  the  earth  a  wilderness  ! 

"  Only  let  me  go  on,  go  on, 

"  Still  hoping  ever  and  anon 

"  To  reach  one  eve  the  Better  Land  ! " 


XXXII. 

Then  did  the  form  expand,  expand — 
I  knew  him  through  the  dread  disguise 
As  the  whole  God  within  his  eyes 
Embraced  me. 


XXXIII. 

When  I  lived  again. 
The  day  was  breaking,  —the  grey  plain 
I  rose  from,  silvered  thick  with  dew. 
Was  this  a  vision  ?     False  or  true  ? 
Since  then,  three  varied  years  are  spent, 
And  commonly  my  mind  is  bent 
To  think  it  was  a  dream — be  sure 
A  mere  dream  and  distemperature — 
The  last  day's  watching  :  then  the  night, — 
The  shock  of  that  strange  Northern  Light 


137 

Set  my  head  swimming,  bred  in  me 

A  dream.     And  so  I  live,  you  see, 

Go  through  the  world,  try,  prove,  reject, 

Prefer,  still  struggling  to  effect 

My  warfare ;  happy  that  I  can 

Be  crossed  and  thwarted  as  a  man, 

Not  left  in  God's  contempt  apart, 

With  ghasdy  smooth  life,  dead  at  heart, 

Tame  in  earth's  paddock  as  her  prize. 

Thank  God,  she  still  each  method  tries 

To  catch  me,  who  may  yet  escape, 

She  knows,  the  fiend  in  angel's  shape  ! 

Thank  God,  no  paradise  stands  barred 

To  entry,  and  I  find  it  hard 

To  be  a  Christian,  as  I  said  ! 

Still  every  now  and  then  my  head 

Raised  glad,  sinks  mournful — all  grows  drear 

Spite  of  the  sunshine,  while  I  fear 

And  think,  "  How  dreadful  to  be  grudged 

"  No  ease  henceforth,  as  one  that's  judged, 

"  Condemned  to  earth  for  ever,  shut 

"  From  heaven  !  " 

But  Easter-Day  breaks  !     But 
Christ  rises  !     Mercy  every  way 
Is  infinite, — and  who  can  say  ? 


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